FOREST HILL, Md. — A Maryland politician, on this day, serving as a canvassing watchdog, Delegate Kathy Szeliga has plenty of reasons to be suspicious.
“The complete debacle of having over 500 thousand mail-in ballots incorrectly mailed out,” said Szeliga, (R) District 7A.
And as if that wasn’t enough, she says questions surround ballots sent out to replace the original ones.
Extra scrutiny surrounding mail-in ballots
“Then I had a constituent---Korean War veteran, 98-year-old man, who was voting mail-in and he got his initial mail-in ballot and then he got two replacement ballots,” added the state delegate.
Harford County Elections Director Stephanie Taylor says original ballots are being sequestered---set aside for ten days until everything else has been counted.
“They’ll be canvassed on a separate scanner and so everything is kept separate,” said Taylor.
“And no one will get to vote twice?” we asked.
“No, there are systems in place that do not allow it, because as we know, these absentee ballots; they have a tracking number on the envelope so the first round of
ballots---all those tracking numbers were voided so the system won’t even accept them,” she replied.
At stake in this canvassing is the fate of every candidate whose race remains statistically up for grabs.
There’s an old adage, which suggests ‘every vote counts’ and candidates know that all too well in races, which have yet to be decided.
Just ask John B. Carl, Junior.
“I ran four years ago for county council seat District D, and the night of I was winning by 242 votes in a race of four people,” Carl told us, “and then a week and a half later after they did the mail-ins, I lost by 11 so it was that tight.”
This time, Carl says he’s leading his opponent by a four-to-one margin in a race for that same seat---but even that far ahead, he’s not celebrating just yet.
“Yes, I’m close to 80/20,” said Carl, “We’ll let it ride, but I’m not taking anything for granted.”
