{"id":1832,"date":"2026-06-23T14:10:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T14:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=1832"},"modified":"2026-06-23T14:10:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T14:10:22","slug":"election-integrity-fiasco-in-maryland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=1832","title":{"rendered":"Election integrity fiasco in Maryland"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Maryland election officials are facing a serious test of public trust after a vendor coding error reportedly caused some voters to receive incorrect mail-in ballots during the 2026 gubernatorial primary.\u00a0\u00a0The error involved ballots mailed before May 14, 2026.<\/p>

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Maryland State Board of Elections (SBE) administrator Jared DeMarinis said at the May 28, 2026 state election board meeting that more than 563,000 voters were included in affected mailing but that the \u201cvendor could not accurately identify\u201d which voters had received the wrong ballot.\u00a0\u00a0DeMarinis further clarified that there were \u201cover 447,000 voters\u201d whose ballots may have been affected.\u00a0\u00a0The board identified the error and attempted to correct it by sending out hundreds of thousands of replacement ballots.\u00a0\u00a0President Trump commented on the matter shortly after the issue became public.<\/p>\n

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Kate Sullivan, director of the SecuretheVoteMD, a volunteer election integrity organization, believes that the election board likely chose a remedy that was not only unnecessarily chaotic, but legally questionable under Maryland law:<\/p>\n

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The State Board of Elections had a simple, legal solution sitting right in front of them. They should have complied with Maryland Election Law \u00a711-303.2 \u2014 the \u201cfirst ballot\u201d rule, which requires them to verify the original ballots as they come in, count the correct ones, and cure the incorrect ones while there was still time.<\/p>\n

That is exactly what the law requires. Instead, they flooded the system with replacement ballots, locked the originals in a vault until certification day, and issued guidance that overrides the \u201cfirst ballot\u201d statute entirely. One has to ask, when an election authority ignores an obvious lawful remedy and chooses a legally questionable path that potentially disenfranchises voters, it is no longer sufficient to call it a mistake. Marylanders deserve a full accounting of why this approach was chosen \u2014 and by whom.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Now SecuretheVoteMD is demanding that the Maryland State Board of Elections take five concrete steps before the November 3, 2026 general election to protect voters from disenfranchisement.\u00a0\u00a0In sum, the organization is asking election officials to address key questions on the record: how the original erroneous ballots are being identified, what adjudication standard is being applied, how many original-batch ballots were received, how many were rejected, what notification process will be used for affected voters, and how the chain of custody was maintained from receipt through counting.<\/p>\n

SecuretheVoteMD is also adamant that every voter whose ballot is rejected should be affirmatively notified within ten days of primary election certification.\u00a0\u00a0The organization contends that if a citizen\u2019s ballot is rejected because of an error generated by the election system, the voter has a right to know.<\/p>\n

Sullivan says DeMarinis and the Maryland State Board of Elections have resisted SecuretheVoteMD\u2019s demand that affected voters be directly notified.\u00a0\u00a0At the May 28 SBE meeting, DeMarinis appeared to minimize the seriousness of the error, telling board members that the matter would be addressed as part of a post-primary \u201clessons learned\u201d review, rather than through an independent investigation or additional voter notification beyond what the board had already done or posted on its website.<\/p>

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According to reporting from Maryland Matters, Nikki Tyree, executive director of the League of Women Voters, agreed with SecuretheVoteMD, stating that the General Assembly should \u201clook into this.\u201d<\/p>\n

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[Expletive] \u201clessons learned.\u201d This is so far beyond their lessons learned. This is a situation where we need an independent investigation, whatever that means. The General Assembly needs to be looking into this.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

SecuretheVoteMD\u2019s Demands<\/h1>\n

In addition to demanding that the board notify voters of their rejected ballots, SecuretheVoteMD is demanding that the July 6 \u201cOriginal Ballot\u201d canvass be conducted live, in public, open to credentialed observers, and streamed online with a clear camera angle on the actual ballot-review process.\u00a0\u00a0The group also asks that party representatives, citizen accountability organizations, counsel, local press, and bipartisan local board members be present and visibly engaged.<\/p>\n

Upon certification, SecuretheVoteMD is also asking for a full accounting of the canvass results, including \u201cexact\u201d auditable counts of<\/p>\n