President Donald Trump waded into Maryland’s mail ballot mishap on Monday, blaming the vendor’s error on Gov. Wes Moore and announcing that he would ask the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate.

Maryland Elections Administrator Jared DeMarinis announced Friday that he’d ordered the vendor to resend roughly 400,000 mail ballots “to maintain the highest level of confidence and accuracy in mail-in voting.” This came after the vendor notified the state that they’d made a coding error and were unable to determine which voters may have received incorrect ballots — or the right ones.

Trump, who has long pushed voter fraud claims and falsely maintains that he won the 2020 presidential election, was quick to blame Moore, a Democrat who has been a sharp critic of the Republican president.

“This was done by the Corrupt Governor of the State, Wes Moore,” Trump said on the social media platform X. “He allowed this to happen in order to make sure that Democrats win. It never made sense to me that Maryland was considered an automatic Democrat State, but now I see why.”

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Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for Moore, called Trump’s statement about the mail ballot problems “false and irresponsible.“

“The State Board of Elections identified a vendor error, disclosed it publicly, and is fixing it to ensure every eligible voter receives a valid ballot and every valid vote is counted,” Moussa said in a statement Tuesday. “Marylanders should look to the State Board of Elections for accurate information — not social media misinformation designed to undermine confidence in our elections.”

Trump also told reporters that he thought he did “really well” in Maryland and seemed to suggest voting fraud might have cost him the state.

Democrat Kamala Harris defeated Trump 62.6% to 34% in Maryland, or by more than 867,000 votes, in the 2024 general election.

Trump’s remarks online come shortly after the state revealed that there was a mishap that caused some voters to receive mail ballots with the wrong party’s primary last week.

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DeMarinis said last week the majority of voters received the correct party ballots, but that since it wasn’t possible for the state to determine which voters received incorrect ballots, officials were replacing the whole batch. Affected voters will receive a postcard notifying them of the mistake, followed by a ballot marked “REPLACEMENT.”

The initial ballots will be voided and should be discarded, DeMarinis said. Voters who were mailed a ballot before May 14 are affected.

The State Board of Elections has since issued detailed instructions and will mail replacement ballots to those affected beginning Tuesday.

“It bears repeating that no fake OR illegal mail-in ballots were distributed,” DeMarinis said on X Monday night. “The wording in President Trump’s continued posts about Maryland’s elections creates an environment of misinformation on a voting right. Mail-in voting is not a partisan issue. Mail-in voting is legal.”

DeMarinis stressed that state elections “are administered, supervised and managed by the bipartisan State Board of Elections – not the Governor."

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“The action taken for reissuance of ballots eliminates any doubt about the integrity or accuracy of mail-in voting in the Primary election where nominees are selected by the voters of two principal political parties,” he said.

Trump’s swipe at Moore follows occasional sparring between the men in public appearances and on social media. The president has repeatedly targeted the state, and Baltimore specifically, in his comments.

In one instance, he called Baltimore a “hellhole.” Another time he called the city a “horrible deathbed.” On other occasions, he has threatened to send the National Guard to the city or to revoke funding for rebuilding the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Moore has mocked Trump for avoiding military service during the Vietnam War, while Trump has been dismissive of Moore’s national ambitions.

For every insult hurled, Moore has pushed back, and he even invited Trump to come visit Baltimore.

Banner reporter Brenda Wintrode contributed to this report.