Baltimore County?s election director said she has sent a list of voters who cast two ballots in November?s elections to the Maryland Attorney General?s office for investigation.
The list was small, said election director Jackie McDaniel, but significant enough to ask the state to investigate why the voters cast absentee ballots and voted at the polls. The county?s election board was overwhelmed with 31,000 requests for absentee ballots, delaying mailings by more than a week, she said, and many still had not received theirs by Election Day.
They may have gone to the polls as a precaution, she said. McDaniel blamed the volume of requests for absentee ballots on politicians, including Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich and Democratic Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan, who encouraged residents to vote absentee and avoid potential glitches with the state?s new electronic voting machines.
“What the governor did really hindered the people who actually needed absentee ballots,” McDaniel said. “When Mr. Duncan came in, I just thought, ?I could take you all and shake you.? ”
Election officials in the region said the problem was not widespread.
Harford County judges researched 70 cases where voters cast two ballots, but cleared all of intentional wrongdoing, said election supervisor Kim Atkins. In one case, she said a man completed an absentee ballot and left it on his counter. Unbeknownst to him, a family member mailed it.
Election officials in both Baltimore City and Carroll County said they found isolated cases, but nothing worth reporting to investigators. Patricia Matsko, director of the Carroll County Board of Elections, said she encountered two citizens who voted with absentee and provisional ballots.
“We were able to locate them before we did our tabulation, before we did our provisional count,” she said. “I believe, in this case, it was an honest mistake.”
Officials from the Anne Arundel and Howard County election boards did not return inquiries. The Attorney General?s office will conduct preliminary investigations before forwarding legitimate cases to the state prosecutor?s office, said agency spokesman Kevin Enright.
Examiner Staff Writer Luke Broadwater contributed to this report.
