Maryland voters will need to keep an eye out for a postcard from the State Board of Elections telling them to discard the mail-in ballot they’ve already received.
Voters who receive a postcard will instead need to use a ballot and envelope marked “REPLACEMENT” to ensure their vote counts. Those ballots will be mailed beginning Tuesday.
The new guidance comes after the state revealed last week that an error meant some voters have received ballots for the wrong party’s primary.
A vendor, Taylor Print & Visual Impressions, Inc. and affiliate of Minnesota-based Taylor Corpration, notified the state that they’d made a coding error and were unable to determine which voters may had received an incorrect ballot — or the right one.
The mishap got the attention of President Donald Trump, who blamed Gov. Wes Moore and said he would ask the Justice Department to investigate.
Trump, who falsely claimed that he won the 2020 election, said on his social media platform that Moore “allowed this to happen in order to make sure that Democrats win.”
“It never made sense to me that Maryland was considered an automatic Democratic State, but now I see why. I’m sure this has gone on for years,” the Republican president said.
Elections Administrator Jared DeMarinis announced Friday that he’d ordered the vendor to resend roughly 400,000 mail-in ballots “to maintain the highest level of confidence and accuracy in mail-in voting.”
The initial batch of ballots will be voided, the agency said, and voters should discard or destroy those ballots. But only after they get their postcard.
Taylor will reissue ballots at no additional cost to the state.
Voters have been clamoring for more information about whether they were affected and what they should do with the ballots they’d already received.
Detailed instructions, along with renderings of replacement ballot envelopes, were sent by the board in a news release on Monday.
Here are some answers to voters’ questions.
How do I know if I received the wrong ballot?
Affected voters will receive a postcard sent to the same address where they received their ballot. The postcard will notify you of the error and let you know you are one of the people who will receive a replacement ballot.
The state board will also reach out based on the communication method you selected, whether that’s text or email.
Voters who requested to have their ballot delivered by email so they can print them at home are not affected.
If your ballot was mailed before May 14, you will be sent a replacement ballot and a new envelope.
The vendor started mailing ballots on May 9 for those who requested a ballot before May 6.
What do I do with my old ballot?
The board of elections on Monday instructed affected voters to throw away their first ballot and its return envelope. They are sending a new ballot and return envelope.
Those ballots will be marked “REPLACEMENT BALLOT INSIDE” on the front.
When will I receive my new ballot?
Replacement ballots and new return envelopes will start going out Tuesday, May 19, on a rolling basis. The board expects the mailings will be completed by May 29.
Is the mail-in voting process the same?
Yes, everything else is the same. Be sure to vote on the replacement ballot and use the replacement envelope to send it back through the U.S. mail or place it in a drop box.
Mail-in ballots must be placed in a drop box or postmarked by 8 p.m. on June 23. They can also be dropped off at a primary voting location by that same date and time.
How will the board of elections make sure no one votes twice?
The board of elections will use long-standing practices to ensure voters only vote once, Monday’s release said. That includes codes on the ballots to identify which voter the ballot was assigned to and whether it was cast and counted.
“Your local election office is able to identify these ballots and secure them,” the state elections board wrote as part of frequently asked questions response. “These ballots have been voided in our voter registration system that is used to track and receive ballots.”
Voters should cast their ballot marked “replacement” to ensure that it counts, they said.
“As with all facets of the electoral process, there are additional safeguards to ensure only the correct ballot is being counted for each voter,” the statement said.
How did this happen?
The vendor notified the board of a coding error on their end but weren’t able to determine which voters received the wrong ballot.
Taylor Print & Visual Impressions, Inc. did not respond to a request for comment through its affiliate company Taylor Corp.
An online statement said that once the company realized it error, it “immediately began working closely with our customer and election officials to investigate the cause, implement corrective actions, and support the timely delivery of accurate materials to affected voters.”
The statement said company officials were implementing additional quality control measures to prevent this from happening again.
DeMarinis, the elections administrator, said the ballots are mailed directly from the vendor in Minnesota, which is responsible for quality controls. He explained that the vendor’s program failed to properly flag the political party associated with each voters’ address and sent them out as if similar to a general election mailing where both parties vote from the same ballot.
Taylor has been the board of elections’ vendor since 2021. The state spending board approved a deal to work with the company through 2027. The initial contract, renewals and the extension through 2027 total $8.9 million.
DeMarinis said the contract is not up for renewal anytime soon, but his team plans to review the series of events that led to the error after the primary election is over.
“Right now the vendor and the state board is focused on ensuring the election is successful and providing the voters with their mail in ballots as quickly as possible,” he said.
The board of elections is directing voters to check a webpage that it made in response to the incident for frequently asked questions and next steps for affected voters.
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