This archive report was first published on 10 June 2020.
Published on June 10, 2020, a chaotic voting by mail experience in Maryland's Baltimore city served as a warning for the November elections.
With the state mailing ballots to all registered voters, outdated registration lists resulted in a significant number of undeliverable ballots. Baltimore, in particular, struggled with voting by mail, with voters complaining about a lack of information on changes to the election process.
Furthermore, a vendor error led to Baltimore voters being among the last in the state to receive their ballots. A ballot alignment error in a City Council district made the ballots uncountable by scanner machines.
Additionally, some voters who had ballots returned as undeliverable by the Post Office were recorded in poll books as having voted and returned a complete ballot.
'If we have to conduct our elections by mail again, there are a lot of glitches that clearly need to be addressed, and a lot more investment needs to be made in voter education,' said Joanne Antoine, the executive director of Common Cause Maryland.
Similar issues were reported in Washington, D.C., and Wisconsin, where election officials are working to improve the transparency of the vote-by-mail process and help voters unsure of the status of their ballot.
