Trump calls for DOJ investigation after mail ballot error in Maryland
President Donald Trump said Monday he would ask the Justice Department to investigate a recent mail-in voting error in Maryland, pushing unsubstantiated claims that it was fraud.
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Maryland election officials are reissuing about half a million mail-in ballots after saying Friday that a vendor issue led to some voters receiving primary ballots for the wrong party. Because election officials can’t determine who received the wrong ballot, the state is sending new ballots to all potentially affected voters.
Trump said on Truth Social on Friday: “In Maryland, they sent out 500,000 illegal mail-in ballots, and they got caught! So now they’re going to send out 500,000 more mail-in ballots, but no one knows what’s going on with the first 500,000 they sent out.”
The State Board of Elections previously said that initial ballots would be sequestered and canceled and only replacement ballots would be cast and counted.
“There is no risk of duplicate voting as a result of this issue. Election officials have put in place safeguards to ensure that only one ballot can be accepted per voter. Each return/oath envelope has a unique identifier to ensure that a voter can only vote one ballot. SBE has put in place additional safeguards to ensure that only the correct ballot is counted for each voter,” the board said in a statement Monday.
The error was made by a printing company, state election officials said, which will pay for the reissued ballots. The Maryland primary is scheduled to take place on June 23.
The call for a Justice Department investigation is Trump’s latest attack on mail-in voting, which has long been the focus of his false claims of voter fraud. An executive order signed by Trump this year aimed to restrict mail-in voting.
In his article on Truth Social, Trump also called Democratic Gov. Wes Moore “corrupt.”
In a statement, Moore’s spokesperson Ammar Moussa called the president’s statement “false and irresponsible.”
“Marylanders should look to the State Board of Elections for accurate information – not misinformation on social media intended to undermine confidence in our elections,” Moussa said.
State Elections Administrator Jared DeMarinis and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
