On Monday, Donald Trump launched a rant on his Truth Social account intended to accuse Wes Moore of sending out duplicate ballots so people could vote twice.
"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 nobody knows what's happening with the first 500,000 they sent," he wrote. "In addition, many of these Ballots went to Democrats, so any Republican running in Maryland doesn't have a chance!"
How terrible!!! You would think, from this opening salvo, that Wes Moore intentionally tried to bar Republicans from voting. And there's more.
"This was done by the Corrupt Governor of the State, Wes Moore. He allowed this to happen in order to make sure that Democrats win. It never made sense to me that Maryland was considered an automatic Democrat State, but now I see why. I'm sure this has gone on for years. I'm going to ask the Attorney General of the United States, and the DOJ, to bring an immediate investigation into this situation. President DONALD J. TRUMP"
I, as a Democrat, want to be sure everyone has a vote and the election is fair. So I went to check on Maryland and see if she is all right. It turns out, there is a reasonable explanation and one that ensures no cheating.
According to Baltimore Fishbowl reporter Evelyn Lucado, some ballots were erroneously mailed out. Maryland's election is a closed primary, so that Republicans vote for Republicans and Democrats for Democrats (the way a primary should be run, grumbles this Californian), and some Republicans received a ballot for Democrats and vice versa. This was due to a coding error that caused some ballots to be printed incorrectly.
Well, yes. That's bad. Everyone should get the correct ballot and vote for their preferred candidate. According to Lucado, the Secretary of State has instructed everyone who received an incorrect ballot to destroy theirs and wait for a new one.
Voters who will receive replacement ballots will be notified via postcard, text, or email, depending on their preferred method of communication, beginning on Monday, May 18. Production of replacement ballots will begin on May 19, and replacement ballots will be mailed on a rolling basis through May 29.
But wait, there's more.
Affected voters are instructed to destroy their original ballot and use only the marked replacement ballot. Additional instructions will be included in the mailing according to the SBE.
Ballots mailed before May 14 that have already been returned will be voided by local election offices. The SBE said that they will utilize existing safeguard practices to ensure that only one ballot is counted per voter and the integrity of the canvassing process remains intact.
OH HEY, look at that. If our so-called President hadn't been prone to popping off like a junkie waiting for his next fix, he might have realized that it was an error being corrected with a thing called INTEGRITY.
Would it have been better if the error hadn't happened? Yes. But it did, and they are correcting it with an eye to preventing anyone from voting twice. As for Trump's crocodile tears for Republicans, I'm certain they'd love to spoil a Democratic primary any way they can, so spare me the angst. And the investigation.
