The other day, officials at the Motor Vehicles Administration (MVA) revealed that 18,700 voters may have to cast provisional ballots because MVA failed to transmit updated voter registration information to the Board of Elections.
Turns out the problem is much worse than we thought, as up to 80,000 voters could be affected. That’s around 2% of active registered voters. The problems echo the glitches with the voter registration check-in system that plagued the 2006 primary election.
Democrats are hopping mad on this pre-primary fiasco:
Madaleno Statement Regarding the New Revelations of Voter Registration Mismanagement
Kensington, MD – State Senator and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Madaleno, Jr. released the following statement in response to the new revelations that over 81,000 – not 18,000 – voting Marylanders may be incorrectly registered:
“18,000 voting Marylanders being incorrectly registered is dysfunctional management. 81,000 voting Marylanders being incorrectly registered is a catastrophic failure. I call on the Hogan Administration to take effective action on the following items:
- Immediately and urgently take the steps necessary to ensure that ALL polling locations have enough provisional ballots to handle the thousands of voters who will be going to the polls under the belief they are correctly registered;
- The Hogan campaign should immediately pull off the air ANY paid advertising until a Democratic opponent has been officially declared;
- The resignation of Motor Vehicle Administrator Christine Nizer should be submitted immediately. In addition, any Hogan Administration staff that share responsibility for this egregious failure of basic democratic processes should be immediately dismissed.
“The chaos being created by this failure subjects real harm to our most cherished democratic values. Literally hundreds of decisions of who are nominees will be have been needlessly put in limbo.”