Newly found ballots delay Montgomery County’s certification of election results – Maryland Matters

The late discovery Thursday of 102 lacking provisional ballots in Montgomery County has delayed the county’s capacity to certify the July 19 main outcomes till Saturday — because the main candidates within the razor-thin Democratic main for county govt await a recount that’s anticipated to start out subsequent week.

County election officers introduced round 11 p.m. Thursday that that they had discovered 102 provisional ballots from 9 precincts that hadn’t beforehand been counted — a doubtlessly vital cache given County Government Marc Elrich’s 42-vote lead over businessman David Blair within the Democratic main for the county’s high job.

The Montgomery County Board of Elections had deliberate to fulfill Friday afternoon to certify the first election outcomes, however at a particular board assembly carried out over Zoom at 3:30 p.m. Friday, board members had been informed that they must meet Saturday morning to depend the remaining 102 ballots after which reconvene Saturday afternoon to certify the countywide outcomes.

“100 and two ballots nonetheless should be canvassed,” stated Kevin Karpinski, the board’s legal professional.

The depend of the beforehand lacking provisional ballots is scheduled to happen at 11 a.m. Saturday on the county election board headquarters in Gaithersburg. The board will meet once more nearly at 3 p.m. so as to add the provisional depend to the ultimate totals after which certify the outcomes.

At that time, Blair could have 72 hours to formally request a full recount of the first for county govt — one thing his marketing campaign has already indicated he intends to do.

County elections officers stated they wished to certify the election outcomes on Saturday in order that the Maryland State Board of Elections can certify the statewide outcomes at its subsequent board assembly, scheduled for Monday.

Whereas Montgomery elections officers forged the late discovery of the 102 uncounted provisional ballots as proof that the native board’s auditing course of labored, it nonetheless created a brand new wrinkle to what has already been a messy election. On high of that, Friday’s particular board assembly, carried out on-line, was marred by technical difficulties, with board President Nahid Khozeimeh ceaselessly unable to listen to the proceedings however everybody else on the Zoom name in a position to hear her and her husband conversing as they tried to repair the issues.

“Nahid, while you’re not speaking, there’s a number of noise coming out of your location,” board Secretary David Naimon stated at one level in the course of the assembly.

“I do know that,” Khozeimeh replied. “One thing is damaged.”

When board members weren’t dealing with the balky know-how, they pressed Alysoun McLaughlin, the county’s appearing elections director, to clarify how the 102 provisional ballots went lacking. McLaughlin replied that they weren’t transferred from the folders by which they had been initially collected to the folder they’re speculated to be positioned in earlier than canvassing is meant to start.

“All I can say is it seems to me that we merely didn’t conduct a remaining sweep of all these folders to see that they’d been emptied,” she stated.

Requested whether or not this was a mistake made by one particular person or a number of folks on the county elections workers, McLaughlin replied, “The duty was shared. It is going to be the duty of a single particular person sooner or later.”

The Elrich-Blair main is a rematch of 2018, and the result’s eerily comparable: Elrich gained that race by 77 votes. The eventual winner of the first will face former Montgomery County Republican Central Committee Chair Reardon Sullivan within the basic election.