Photo: Alamy
A new report from WMAR-TV in Baltimore revealed that a hefty handful of people in Maryland received their 2020 General Election ballots in August 2022. According to the report, a USPS spokesperson, Tom Oullette, told the outlet that the postal service had “discovered a tray of undelivered mail in a Baltimore facility on Friday, Aug. 5.”
The tray, per his statement, was filled with 26 blank ballots that were delivered to recipients on Aug. 6. He added, “We deeply regret the late delivery of these mailpieces. The Postal Service takes these issues very seriously and is working to help avoid issues like this by going over our processes and procedures with all employees ahead of the general elections.”
Per Just the News, the Baltimore City Board of Elections Director Armstead Jones commented that “having a tray lost is a little different story” than losing one or two pieces of mail.
It is unclear why or how the tray of 26 was lost in 2020, and why the Baltimore USPS just recently sent the ballots to the intended recipients. However, Just the News noted that election issues have cropped up elsewhere in Maryland, particularly in Frederick County, where the Board of Elections decertified the 2022 primary election results following problems with correctly counting vote totals.
Additionally, multiple other states have garnered the national spotlight for reports of problems with mail-in ballots or ballot drop boxes. In Wisconsin, the State Supreme Court ruled in July that absentee ballot drop boxes were illegal. As previously reported by RSBN, the court found drop boxes conflicted with current state statutory requirements advising individuals to personally return their ballots to a clerk or an authorized representative of a clerk.
Per WMAR-TV, one-third of all votes in Maryland’s primary election were collected via mail-in ballots. Maryland is still providing a vote-by-mail option heading into the 2022 General Election.
