A Montgomery County Circuit Court judge granted the Maryland State Board of Elections' request to begin counting mail-in and absentee ballots before Election Day.
The board wanted to be able to start counting mail-in ballots on Oct. 1 -- ahead of Election Day. It's 40 days earlier than the law allows.
The judge heard arguments from both sides on the case Tuesday during an emergency petition filed by the state board of elections.
But Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox is against changing the process.
Maryland was the only state which requires absentee and mail-in ballots to be counted after Election Day. The state board of elections warned that under current policy counting won’t be completed until December.
This comes after the county waited weeks for the results of the Primary Election race for the Democratic nominee for county executive.
"If under the same path, if the timing is the same as the primary election, it could be until Christmas or New Year's to get the results from the election,” Williams remarked at the time.
READ THE FULL OPINION:
The Board of Election anticipates they will receive between 1 and 1.3 million mail-in ballots during the General Election.
Below is the number of vote-by-mail ballots in Maryland in recent years:
- 2010 – 25,276 primary mail-in ballots returned
- 2014 – 18,984 primary mail-in ballots returned
- 2018 – 30,122 primary mail-in ballots returned
- 2022 – 345,081 primary mail-in ballots returned