Monthly Archives: August 2022

2022 Democratic Primary, Montgomery County, Montgomery County Executive

Elrich Wins. Blair Concedes Election

After losing by 77 votes four years ago, David Blair came up 32 votes short against Marc Elrich this time. Some speculated Blair would go to the courts to try and see if he could get more ballots counted, but he has sensibly chosen not to go that route. It would almost certainly have been a losing battle legally and in the public eye.

Here is the press release:

Rockville, Md., August 24, 2022 — David Blair released the following statement on the 2022 Montgomery County Executive Democratic primary election:

“Today, the Board of Elections certified the recount results of the primary election and my bid for County Executive came up 32 votes short. Earlier today, I called Marc Elrich to wish him the best over the next four years.

While we didn’t win, no doubt we pushed the conversation forward in key areas such as early childhood education, career readiness, environmental progress, affordable housing, economic development, public safety and much, much more. I wish a heartfelt thank you to our campaign team, our volunteers, and our many, many supporters. Their energy, dedication, and vision for a better Montgomery County has been truly inspiring.

I also want to acknowledge and thank the Board of Elections staff and volunteers who ensured every vote was counted and counted accurately.

While I may have come in second place in the primary, I’m blessed in life with an incredible wife, family and friends that I adore, more success than I deserve, and a deep desire to give back to the community that I call home. No doubt whatever I do next will be focused on improving the quality of life for those who call Montgomery County home.” 

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2022 Demcratic Primary, County Executive, Montgomery County

Recount Analysis

The Board of Elections has reported the recount results from the early vote as well as all but one of the election districts. David Blair has gained two votes and Marc Elrich has gained one vote. This is bad news for Blair as these were the two sections of the recount most likely to benefit him through closer examination of overvotes—ballots that contained more than one vote for county executive.

In the initial count, these ballots from the early and Election Day vote are run through the counting machine without closer examination. Overvotes are tallied but counted as invalid. But once in a while, closer examination can reveal that the intent of the voter is clear despite an overvote. The ballot may have an “x” through the vote for one candidate that indicates that the voter didn’t mean to vote for that person.

These sorts of ballots would have allowed Al Gore to win the 2000 presidential election.

But changes in how we vote since then have reduced the number of these ballots. During early and Election Day voting in Montgomery, voters must feed their ballots into a machine that gives voters a chance to correct mistakes if there are any overvotes. Some voters cast their ballots on machines (that create a paper record and ballot) that do not allow overvotes. The result is that fewer early and Election Day ballots contain these sorts of problems, which is why only three ballots changed..

The potential for these problems is far greater in mail-in ballots but these ballots were already assessed as they were counted. The Board of Elections has already ruled on any ballots with overvotes, following the extremely detailed set of guidelines from the state. Even though these ballots almost certainly contain a higher share of overvotes, the potential for change is quite low.

Good news for Elrich.

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2022 Demcratic Primary, Montgomery County

102 More Ballots in MoCo!

The Board of Elections has found an additional 102 provisional ballots that it failed to count—enough to change the outcome of the county executive race. But David Blair would have to win an outsized share of them to overtake Marc Elrich’s 42 vote lead. The ballots are from four precincts in Germantown and four in Wheaton. The Board will count the ballots and certify the election on Saturday. Then it’s on to the recount.

Here is the press release from the Board:

For Immediate Release: Thursday, August 11, 2022

MONTGOMERY COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS ACTING DIRECTOR RELEASES STATEMENT ON ADDITIONAL PROVISIONAL BALLOTS TO BE COUNTED

Montgomery County’s Acting Election Director, Alysoun McLaughlin, tonight released the following statement:

“Our precertification audit identified additional provisional ballots to be counted and the Board of Elections will be unable to certify the election as scheduled at its meeting tomorrow afternoon.”

“Before asking the Board to certify any election, our staff conducts a comprehensive precertification audit. That audit includes an inspection of a random sampling of ballot envelopes and a reconciliation of the total number of voters who cast a ballot against the number of ballots scanned.”

“Today, we pulled our random sample of empty provisional ballot envelopes for audit and were unable to locate one of the randomly selected envelopes where it should have been. In addition, we were unable to resolve a discrepancy between the number of provisional ballots that our staff had recommended that the Board accept, and the number of ballots scanned.”

“Together, these two pieces of information prompted a visual search of folders where provisional ballots had been stored prior to the canvass. Those folders contained 102 unopened, sealed ballot envelopes that were never removed from their folders and presented to the canvass from the following precincts:

  •  Precinct 06-10 – 1 ballot 
  •  Precinct 06-11 – 1 ballot
  •  Precinct 06-13 – 14 ballots
  •  Precinct 06-14 – 7 ballots
  •  Precinct 06-15 – 15 ballots
  •  Precinct 13-56 – 12 ballots
  •  Precinct 13-57 – 10 ballots
  •  Precinct 13-58 – 30 ballots
  •  Precinct 13-59 – 12 ballots

“I apologize for this error and for not identifying it until today, or the remaining ballots could have been counted earlier. I want to emphasize that Maryland’s comprehensive precertification audit was designed to identify issues like this before an election is certified to ensure the accuracy of the results. It worked as intended.” 

“I will finish reviewing the rest of the audit to ensure that there are no further discrepancies before I ask the Board of Elections to certify the results of the election. The Board will meet at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, August 12, and we will discuss the findings of our audit and the schedule for canvass and certification.”

Your Voice, Your Vote!

Media Contact: Gilberto Zelaya, 240-777-8625

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Frederick County

Meanwhile, Frederick County has Decertified the Election

The Frederick News-Post has the story:

Frederick County election workers on Wednesday will decertify the results of the July 19 primary and rescan all mail-in and provisional ballots after discovering an inconsistency in their numbers, state and local officials said Monday.

While preparing for the recount, officials realized “there were more votes in the certified results than the number of counted ballots,” Nikki Charlson, the deputy administrator of the Maryland State Board of Elections, said in a phone interview Monday.

Anthony Gutierrez, deputy director of the county board, said he suspected that about 100 mail-in and provisional ballots in the District 3 race had been scanned twice due to human error.

That’s about 2% of the 4,597 total votes recorded in the race.

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2022 Democratic Primary, Montgomery County Executive

Corrections on the Recount Post

Montgomery County does not have DRE machines anymore, so there are no memory sticks. We do have Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs). Voters can use these to create a paper ballot with a bar code and a list of candidates for whom they voted. The Board of Elections does a sample audit to make sure the barcode accurately reflects the listed candidates.

Additionally, voters can receive ballots electronically but must mail them back printed out. These ballots are then entered on the BMDs, so every ballot has a paper trail.

Another reader pointed out that an audit resulted in added votes in a previous race. If the Board finds additional votes, as I pointed out in the previous post, this could indeed alter the result, but I expect that this is unlikely.

My basic conclusion remains the same: the recount is unlikely to alter the result. I appreciate the feedback and corrections from my readers.

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2022 Demcratic Primary, Montgomery County Board of Elections, Montgomery County Executive

42 Votes. Will the Recount Change the Outcome?

Probably not. Here’s why.

Ballots are cast in three different ways. Recounting them is unlikely to change matters.

The first type is cast on DRE machines that directly record the vote electronically. Adding them up again will produce the exact same results.

The second type is bubble-filled paper ballots cast at the polling place or by mail that have been inserted into machines. Those should also produce the same results with only a slightly greater but still very small possibility for change.

Some mail ballots that have overvotes (i.e. the voter filled in voters for more than one candidate). The Board of Elections has already ruled on these ballots, applying the sensible, legal standard based on the intent of the voter. For example, if a voter filled in two bubbles but put an x through Candidate A, it will be counted for Candidate B. Ballots with no clear indication of voter intent will not be counted for any candidate. The Board will apply its decisions in the same manner as during the count.

The final ballot type is votes sent in electronically. In these cases, the votes were transferred from the electronically mailed form to a paper ballot and then fed into counting machines. There is seemingly greater chance for error here except that this process was done very carefully with two separate people overseeing the copying to make sure it was done correctly. I don’t know if the recount allows for examination the copying of these votes on to paper ballots, but it is very likely to change more than a very small number of votes—fewer than needed to change the outcome.

The only potential source of change I can see is if the Board of Elections discovers a missing DRE memory stick or stack of ballots. That is also highly unlikely. One reason that the count took so long was that the Board was being extra careful due to the tightness of the county executive race.

Some of the more extreme Blair supporters (but not Blair) are calling for him to fight to get more provisional ballots included. Except that my understanding is that Montgomery has already counted a far higher proportion of provisional ballots than elsewhere—90% as compared to the 68% state average. That means there are relatively few left and those that are left were excluded for very clear legal reasons, such as the voter was not registered with the party or changed their registration too late to vote in the party’s primary this year.

Alternatively, I suppose Blair could go to court to fight to get other votes excluded. Both approaches are way to reminiscent of “Stop the Steal” for my taste. The Blair campaign has been wise to steer utterly clear of them even as it pursues its legal right and utterly reasonable request for a recount due to the tightness of the election results.

UPDATE: See new post with some corrections.

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2022 Demcratic Primary, David Blair, Marc Elrich

Elrich Up by 198, Mail Count Complete

The latest totals came out tonight. According to the Montgomery County Board of Elections Twitter account, all mail ballots have been counted and they’ve started on provisionals. The entire count is hopefully going to be completed tomorrow.

The total number of mail ballot votes currently reported is 61,581. That compares to a total 63,626 returned Democratic mail ballots. My guess is that The totals now include all of the mail ballots as not everyone votes in every contest. But it’s hard to know for sure. Alternatively, there might be some provisionals in the count.

There are roughly 7000 provisional ballots. David Blair would have to win an estimated 2.9% more than Marc Elrich (assuming that all are valid counted) in order to catch up. This is possible but we’ll have to see how the count ends up.

Elrich has a smaller lead in numerical term than Blair did on election night but there are far fewer votes left to count. The share of remaining votes that Blair needs to get (assuming that no provisionals are thrown out) is now a bit higher than needed by Elrich after election night.

It’s certainly looking a lot better for Elrich than it did on election night but we’ll have to wait and see how the race ends up. It remains well within the free recount zone.

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Bad Ideas

Climate Protestors Marching Against U.S. Aid for Ukraine. Wait, What??!

It’s almost as if Jim Driscoll sits around all day thinking about how to make fighting climate change unpopular in enviro-friendly Montgomery County. By gum, I think he’s hit on a winner this time.

Driscoll’s band of climate activists is demanding that the U.S. end military aid to Ukraine to save the planet. Towards that end they plan to block the road to Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s district office:

Van Hollen just voted for $40 billion in weapons for Ukraine. The veterans and youth are asking Sen. Van Hollen to demand that President Biden immediately negotiate an end to the U.S. proxy war on Russia. This is the only way to save thousands of Ukrainian lives; reduce hunger, inflation and recession and give appropriate budget priority to the rapidly-worsening, climate catastrophe. We want him to join Rep. Jaimie [sic] Raskin in voting against the bloated military budget and spend the money saved on a Green New Deal.

My guess is that Sen. Van Hollen would like to save Ukraine AND stop climate change. The citation of Rep. Jamie Raskin is also bizarre because he has been a firm supporter of military aid for Ukraine. As he said on the House floor:

Generations to come will look back at this moment to ask what did our generation do when Vladimir Putin and his army invaded Ukraine and tried not only to crush its democracy and violate the spirit of its people but vaporize and annex the entire nation.

Driscoll’s decision to marry action on climate to Putin’s colonial war in Ukraine is the sort of unintentional leftist self-parody that makes the real work of promoting meaningful policy action harder.

As Daily Kos Founder Markos Moulitsas said about Code Pink:

“Code Pink has never been more than a nuisance — an ineffective, self-indulgent, obnoxious and tone-deaf organization,” said Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas.

“It was never relevant before, and it certainly isn’t relevant today,” Moulitsas said. “I’m sure their antics make them feel good about themselves, make them feel as if they’re accomplishing something, but in reality they’ve done nothing but piss off everyone around them, including potential allies.”

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Casey Anderson, Montgomery County Planning Board, Open Meetings Act

Anderson Excoriates Compliance Board after Caught in (Another) Open Meetings Act Violation

The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) just can’t stop violating the Open Meetings Act. This time it involves the Commission, its Executive Committee, the Commission’s Retirement Board, and several of the Retirement Board’s committees. Trustees include MoCo Planning Board member Gerald Cichy and Carrie McCarthy of the MoCo Planning Department. Casey Anderson is currently chair of the M-NCPPC as well as of the MoCo Planning Board.

Their latest decision is linked and posted at the bottom of this post. Here is the summary of the Open Meetings Act Compliance Board’s decision:

As we explain below, we conclude that the Commission and its Executive Committee failed to make sufficiently detailed disclosures to the public before and after meeting in closed sessions. The Commission also violated the Act by engaging in closed-door discussions that exceeded the scope of the statutory provisions that the Commission claimed as authority for excluding the public.

As Chair of the MoCo Planning Board and M-NCPPC, Casey Anderson has been the recipient of an inordinate number of adverse decisions by the Compliance Board. The Montgomery County Council President Gabe Albornoz has also upbraided Anderson and the Planning Board for abuse of its consent agenda and failure to register lobbyists as required by law.

In a letter to the County Council replying to Albornoz’s concerns, Anderson stated “Whenever anyone points out gaps in our procedures, we never hesitate to make improvements.” His contemptuous response to the latest finding by the Compliance Board shows this to be false.

Instead of leading M-NCPPC into figuring out how to comply properly with both the spirit and the letter of the Open Meetings Act, Anderson gave a lengthy diatribe excoriating the Compliance Board for their decision (starts a little before 39 minutes into the video). He says that complying with the Act “would not serve the public well” or “serve the interests of open government.” Anderson even accused the Compliance Board of undermining “public confidence in open government” — a rather bizarre accusation when you’ve just been found in violation of the Open Meetings Act. Again.

I’ve tracked several slap downs of M-NCPPC and the Montgomery County Planning Board here on Seventh State. The Montgomery County Council has also made clear their concern. Anderson, the Planning Board and M-NCPPC don’t care and continue to show contempt for the law. No one on M-NCPPC said a word in response to Anderson’s denunciation. The Planning Board continues to support his approach.

The question now is whether the Council is going to do anything about it or if Anderson is going to continue to ride roughshod over the law, the Council and the public.

Here is a link to the complaint.

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