Early mail-in ballot counting helped call some Maryland primary races sooner

Early mail-in ballot canvassing became an official mainstay in Maryland in 2024, helping elections officials to produce quick results in tight races on the night of the primary in contests for Baltimore mayor and U.S. Senate.

By Tuesday — the day of the primary — 146,840 mail-in ballots had already been counted across the state, data from the Maryland State Board of Elections showed.

That counting was made possible by legislation passed by state officials in 2023 to help local boards of elections more quickly process the increasing number of mail-in ballots.

For some races, that speed paid dividends.

On the night of the primary, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks defeated U.S. Rep. David Trone, a multimillionaire who injected more than $60 million of his own money into his campaign to replace retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin.

Her victory came after polls earlier in the campaign, including one conducted for The Baltimore Sun, University of Maryland and FOX45, showed Trone with an advantage. Instead, Alsobrooks took a 10% lead over Trone as returns came in Tuesday.

Primary night vote counts included returns from the state’s eight-day early voting period, primary day itself and mail-in ballots canvassed ahead of Tuesday. About 463,000 of the now 576,896 Democratic ballots tallied in the Senate race were processed by primary night, state data shows.

In Baltimore, a call in the mayoral race this year came considerably faster than it did in 2020 when Brandon Scott did not become the clear winner until a full week after the Democratic primary. Chief rival Sheila Dixon further extended the race that year, waiting an additional five days to concede.

In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic forced the state to hold its first election mostly by mail. Just 3,913 voters cast ballots in person, leaving the city with 156,164 mail-in ballots to count — a process that took many days.

This year, more than 32,500 voters cast mail-in ballots in Baltimore, about 95% of them from Democratic voters. Canvassing began in April and the Baltimore Board of Elections had 11,781 mail-in ballots counted by primary day.

Scott opened up a sizable gap between himself and challenger Sheila Dixon on primary night — about 6,500 votes more than the former mayor. It was enough for The Associated Press to call the race at 11:24 p.m. Tuesday, and Scott declared victory minutes later.

Scott’s lead held Thursday as elections staff got to work counting many of the remaining mail-in ballots. With more than 14,800 new ballots tallied, Scott’s margin expanded to almost 8,900. Of the 79,159 votes counted in the race so far, about 80% were counted by primary night. At least 3,000 mail-in ballots have yet to be counted, and about 6,300 provisional ballots must still be considered.

Dixon conceded the mayoral race Friday.

Roger Hartley, dean of the University of Baltimore’s College of Public Affairs, said the early jump election officials got on ballot counting and the unexpectedly large margins for some candidates contributed to earlier results this cycle.

“It was always going to be a learning curve,” he said of Maryland’s implementation of widespread mail-in voting. “It feels like they’re getting better at it, and they’re going to get better at it each time.”

Hartley said most election watchers did not anticipate the U.S. Senate or mayoral race to be called primary  night. But Scott opened a gap that Dixon was unlikely to close. She would have needed to win 60% to 70% of the remaining mail-in ballots, Hartley said.

“With Alsobrooks, it was like, wow, this is really over,” Hartley said. “But if it had been reasonably close, we would still be parked at the Board of Elections waiting for votes to come out.”

Some races, however, will always be too close to call on election night, Hartley cautioned. That was the case with several hotly contested races for the Baltimore City Council. Even after Thursday’s count, several remained undecided. Top candidates for the city’s District 11 in South Baltimore and District 8 in West Baltimore were separated by fewer than 150 votes.

Baltimore’s election board opted to pause ballot counting Friday and through the weekend. The process will resume Monday. Provisional ballots will be considered Wednesday.

The 2024 primary marked the first year that elections officials were able to canvass mail-in votes ahead of Election Day on a nonemergency basis.

In 2020, when mail-in balloting was adopted in large numbers during the pandemic, then-Gov. Larry Hogan issued an executive order to allow local election boards to count on an emergency basis.

The Maryland General Assembly passed legislation in 2022 to make early canvassing a regular part of the election process beyond the pandemic. Hogan, a Republican, vetoed the bill, but some jurisdictions were able to start counting general election mail-in ballots before Election Day following a court ruling.

The bill was reintroduced and passed in 2023. Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, signed it into law, officially moving the start of the mail-in canvass across the state from two days after an election to up to eight days before the start of early voting.

Several local boards, including those in Baltimore City and Anne Arundel, Carroll and Harford counties began counting on the earliest possible day allowed under the new law.

As of Friday night, approximately 377,000 mail-in ballots were received of the more than 595,000 sent. Nearly 65% of received ballots have been counted, thus far.

Requests for mail-in ballots during the 2022 election reached over 642,000 — the highest in state history. In an interview with The Sun earlier this month, Jared DeMarinis, Maryland’s elections administrator, said he anticipates requests for the general election in November will break that record.