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Elections Officials Believe They Have Enough Judges Lined Up to Staff Polling Places

August 29, 2020 by Maryland Matters

Maryland’s local boards of elections now have enough election judges to staff Election Day voting centers, but state officials say the search for new judges is far from over.

A surge of state workers, coupled with a need for fewer election judges after the switch to voting centers, means local boards of elections now have enough staff for the Nov. 3 election, Deputy Elections Administrator Nikki Charlson said during a Friday afternoon State Board of Elections meeting.

Local election boards faced thousands of vacant positions after Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) last month ordered a more conventional election for the fall. The prospect of opening every polling center during a global pandemic left election officials scrambling to recruit election judges, and looking to consolidate polling centers due to the lack of staff.

After Hogan approved a switch from thousands of precinct-level polling centers to roughly 370 larger voting centers, and efforts to incentivize state workers to sign up as judges, local boards now say they’re well staffed.

But Charlson said local election officials are now looking to “build up their bench” with extra election judges, in case of a second wave of COVID-19 hits the state or there is a sudden need for additional workers. State Board Chairman Michael C. Cogan (R) urged voters to continue signing up to be election judges as the November election approaches.

Some counties are looking for judges from specific political parties. Allegany County is looking for Democratic election judges, while Baltimore City and Baltimore, Montgomery, Prince George’s, and Talbot counties want more Republican judges. Montgomery County is also looking for Spanish-speaking judges.

Board members approved a slew of local boards’ proposals for voting centers. Roughly 255 voting centers and nearly 70 early voting locations were approved during Friday’s meeting, with a majority of Maryland’s counties submitting their plans for November. Frederick County and Baltimore City are among the few jurisdictions that haven’t submitted a plan yet.

While many counties intend to use high schools and community centers as voting centers, some are using athletic arenas: Prince George’s county intends to use the University of Maryland’s Xfinity Center on Election Day.

Concerns over ballot applications

Board Member Malcolm L. Funn (D) said he recently received a mailed ballot application, despite already having applied online. Board members previously said voters who apply for a ballot online won’t receive an application in the mail.

Erin Perrone, the director of the state board’s election management and reform division, said some voters who apply online for a mail-in ballot will still receive an application in the mail. State election officials gave applications data to their printing vendor on Aug. 6 — and voters who applied after that date, or whose applications weren’t processed by that date, will receive an application in the mail.

Funn said he applied around July 20, but Perrone noted that his application wasn’t processed until Aug. 15.

Some who received applications despite applying online were outraged, including Sen. Cheryl C. Kagan (D-Montgomery), who slammed the unneeded mailings as “an extra step, and an extra burden, and extra money that’s spent.”

Kagan and her staff went through the state’s online ballot application process on July 29, but still received applications in the mail Thursday.

Perrone noted that voters might not need to resend the mailed application form, and can check their application status via the state’s online voter lookup system. Roughly 378,200 Marylanders have requested mail-in ballots so far, with nearly 4 million voters expected to receive mailed application forms in the coming days.

By Bennett Leckrone

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Local Elections Officials Urge Fewer Voting Sites Due to Poll Worker Shortage

August 6, 2020 by Maryland Matters

Election officials from around Maryland urged the State Board of Elections to reduce the number of voting locations because they do not expect to have enough election judges to staff polls.

“This is your final opportunity to adjust course and save the election in Maryland,” David Garreis, the president of the Maryland Association of Election Officials (MAEO), told the board at its online meeting Wednesday.

So far, local officials estimate they are short about a third of the workers they would need to open all polling sites as Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) ordered last month.

Recruiting volunteers to work long hours steering thousands of voters through polling sites during a pandemic has been difficult. Many longtime poll workers initially agreed to work the election, but dropped out after consulting with families and friends, Garreis said.

Instead of opening every polling location, the association wants the State Board of Elections to allow jurisdictions to open several centralized voting centers.

MAEO’s plan calls for opening the same number of election-day voting centers as early voting sites, with the option of adding two additional centers in each jurisdiction, if needed.

Deputy State Elections Administrator Nikki Charlson said 79 or 80 early voting sites already are designated across Maryland.

The MAEO proposal allows up to 128 voting centers — far fewer than the more than 1,000 called for in Gov. Hogan’s plan. Vice Chairman Patrick J. Hogan (D) floated the idea of allowing local boards of elections to open even more centers.

Traditional polling centers, of the kind Gov. Hogan wants open for the November election, are neighborhood-based. But the voting centers MAEO recommends would pull voters from several precincts across a larger geographic area.

Garreis said local boards would seek large facilities for the voting centers, such as high schools, that would allow for more social distancing.

Under MAEO’s recommendations, voting centers would be open from Oct. 29 through Election Day, hosting both early and election-day voting.

The Nov. 3 election is about 90 days away, and Garreis said time is running out to change the election format.

“Failure to give us the tools we need to be successful is going to put the outcome of the entire election in doubt,” said Garreis, who is also Anne Arundel County’s deputy elections director.

State elections board member William G. Voelp (R) and Patrick J. Hogan agreed that the board may not have the authority to mandate the consolidated voting centers. The decision rests with the governor.

MAEO also asked the state elections board to set up a center to help local boards process mail-in ballot applications.

Board members will decide on the MAEO recommendations at a meeting at 2 p.m. Friday.

MAEO’s requests came days after Gov. Hogan slammed local officials’ requests to close some election-day polling centers.

Hogan issued his decision to hold a more traditional election after errors in the state’s largely vote-by-mail June 2 primary led to delayed results and long lines at polls.

In a letter to the State Board of Elections on Monday, Hogan wrote that Prince George’s County officials’ request to close 229 precincts and open only 15 could disenfranchise minority voters and keep many voters of color from making it to the polls.

But the governor didn’t seem to take issue with consolidating certain polling locations in that letter, and wrote that merging a few precincts is under local boards’ jurisdictions. The idea of opening such a limited number of polling centers as Prince George’s proposed, however, is one Hogan won’t entertain.

“Under existing state law, local boards do have the authority to make decisions regarding the consolidation of polling places in case of an emergency,” Hogan wrote. “However, merging two polling places into one is very different than closing 90% of all polling places in a county.”

In a statement Wednesday, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) defended her county’s request to limit in-person voting in the Nov. 3 election.

“Rather than mail ballots to homes as he did for the primary, the Governor wants us to believe it is in our best interest to put voters, election judges and volunteers at risk, or to engage in the unreliable and overcomplicated process of sending absentee ballot applications because he refuses to mail ballots to the homes of Marylanders,” Alsobrooks wrote.

“The fact that the Governor, who is well aware that Prince George’s County has experienced the greatest amount of COVID-19 illness and death in the state, mocked our concern regarding a safe and responsible voting process for our citizens, demonstrates his high disregard for the health and well-being of the people in my County.”

Vice-chairman Hogan and fellow board member Malcolm L. Funn, the two Democrats on the panel, still hoped to recommend a largely mail-in election to the governor.

Vice-chairman Hogan said he’d lost sleep worrying about the shortage of election workers, and urged Republican board members to recommend automatic mail-in voting.

“I’m pleading one last time for this board … to recommend mailing every registered voter a ballot, and having as many early voting sites, and as many election day sites as possible with the staffing that the [local boards of elections] can produce,” the vice-chairman said.

The five-member board previously split along party lines in recommending an elections format to the governor. Funn and Vice-chairman Hogan recommended automatic mail-in voting and the board’s Republican majority recommended applications for mail-in ballots, citing concerns over voter confidence and fraud.

Funn pushed back on those claims during the Wednesday afternoon meeting.

“There has been no factual indication that mail-in ballots has created fraud,” Funn said.

Republican Voelp said he wants to work to make Hogan’s plan work rather than change the board’s recommendation at this late stage.

Eleven Maryland counties say they won’t be able to open all of their polling locations for early voting and election day as they face a massive shortage of workers.

Allegany, Anne Arundel, Carroll, Charles, Frederick, Harford, Howard, Queen Anne’s, St. Mary’s, Talbot and Washington counties all requested polling location changes during the virtual meeting.

Board members will consider the consolidations at their Friday meeting, after they mull the MAEO recommendations.

Calls for the governor to reverse course and conduct a mostly mail-in election on Nov. 3 have grown since he decided to hold a more traditional election.

The governor has repeatedly said state law requires all polling centers to open, but voting rights advocates, local election officials and Democratic lawmakers say his plan will disenfranchise voters.

Advocates have touted the successes of the June 2 largely-mail-in primary — including very high voter turnout and a vast majority of ballots being delivered correctly — as reasons to hold the upcoming general election by mail.

Also at the meeting Wednesday, Del. Michele Guyton (D-Baltimore County) floated the idea of opening curbside voting for the Nov. 3 election. Guyton said curbside voting, wherein voters remain in their car to cast their ballot, would be safer for voters and election workers.

“I’m not willing to stand in line with a lot of other people at polling places, or to volunteer as a poll worker,” Guyton said, adding that many might be comfortable with both if curbside voting was in place.

In keeping with the governor’s decision, the State Board of Elections approved a draft for the state’s mail-in ballot applications Wednesday.

Board members also set the deadline for requesting a mail-in ballot to Oct. 20.

MAEO had requested the deadline be moved from Oct. 27 to give election officials more time to process vote-by-mail requests and send out ballots.

By Bennett Leckrone

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Local Officials May Need State Workers to Fill Election Judge Vacancies

July 26, 2020 by Maryland Matters

Maryland’s State Board of Elections might take Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) up on his offer to encourage state employees to fill election judge vacancies for local election boards across the state.

A shortage of election judges, fueled by safety concerns because of the continuing coronavirus pandemic, could foil Hogan’s plan to open every polling place for the Nov. 3 election.

David Garreis, president of the Maryland Association of Election Officials, warned that local election boards might have to consolidate polling places because they would not have enough election judges to operate them all.

“It’s becoming impossible to fill all of these vacancies,” Garreis told the State Board of Elections during a virtual meeting Thursday afternoon. “We’re not going to be able to make up for this election judge shortfall.”

In a July 8 letter, Hogan told members of Maryland’s elections board that the state would provide personal protective equipment and encourage state employees to fill in as election judges when needed. Now, as privately owned polling locations are being withdrawn for the Nov. 3 election and poll workers call it quits, officials are considering asking the governor for help.

“We need to let the governor know as soon as possible, so that his administration can get the word out and recruit state employees to be judges,” state elections board Vice Chairman Patrick J. Hogan said. “The inability to staff polling places, as we all know, will have dramatic impacts on the ability for such places to open at all.”

Garreis, who is also the deputy elections director for Anne Arundel County, said roughly 35% of poll worker positions for the upcoming election are vacant statewide. He has said it takes about 25,000 poll workers to run a general election in Maryland.

Poll worker positions need to be filled sooner rather than later, Garreis said. He said Anne Arundel County plans to begin training its election judges in mid-August, and that larger counties may begin training before then.

After the governor announced his intent, earlier this month, to hold a more traditional election in November, voting rights advocates, Democratic lawmakers and local election boards have called for him to reverse course and conduct a mail-in election.

On Wednesday, activists and lawmakers gathered outside of Hogan’s Annapolis residence and accused the governor of voter suppression.

Hogan seemed firm in his decision to expand in-person voting and send every registered Marylander an application for a mail-in ballot.

At a Wednesday evening press conference, the governor slammed the criticism and accusations of voter suppression as a “typical partisan argument.” He also criticized the State Board of Elections for what he described as a lack of preparation for the upcoming election.

Garreis pushed back on the governor’s claims of partisanship during the elections board’s Thursday meeting.

“The issues that we’re having are not a partisan issue,” Garreis said. “It’s a logistical issue stemming from a public health crisis.”

Officials also approved prepaid return envelopes for mail-in voting applications for the November election. Deputy Elections Administrator Nikki Charlson said the postage isn’t in the election board’s budget, but officials have said they’ll submit a budget amendment to cover that and other costs for the general election.

Prepaid postage for voters to return applications and mail-in ballots is expected to cost the state roughly $1.8 million, according to a recent letter to state officials from Maryland Elections Administrator Linda H. Lamone.

Elections board members also heard concerns from a Montgomery County resident about electronic ballots in the November elections. Lynn Garland said she has experience in elections security and noted that electronic ballots have to be printed by voters and transcribed by poll workers before they can be counted. That process is cumbersome, she said, and could delay results into December.

Republican Maryland elections board member Kelley A. Howells said she is worried about the prospect of already-limited poll workers painstakingly transcribing electronic ballots by hand.

“It really frightens me,” Howells said.

Many other board members seemed to share Howells’ concern and the board instructed staff to look at ways to encourage voters to use mail-in ballots rather than electronic ones.

The term “absentee ballot” is no longer used in Maryland. Charlson said a new state law changed the term to “mail-in ballot” and asked board members to refrain from using the “absentee” term.

By Bennett Leckrone

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

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