Maryland: Mail-in ballot delays in Maryland threaten statewide primary, activists say | Jenna Portnoy/The Washington Post

State Sen. Cory V. McCray was bicycling with his four children when a constituent stopped him in the middle of the street to ask, “Where’s my ballot?” He was referring to his missing mail-in ballot for Maryland’s June 2 primary election, which like other recent contests will be held almost entirely by mail because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. “My blood just started boiling,” recalled McCray (D-Baltimore City), recounting his frustration over delays that resulted in 1 million registered voters in Baltimore City and Montgomery County receiving their ballots late — or not at all. State elections officials blamed the error on an out-of-state vendor but said a full audit will have to wait until after the primary, when voters will choose nominees for president, Baltimore mayor and City Council, and all eight of Maryland’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Elections officials have been working for weeks to implement an order from Gov. Larry Hogan (R) that postponed the primary from April 28 and called for the election to be conducted mostly by mail. The governor ordered ballots mailed to the home of every registered voter in the state.

Maryland: After vendor wrongly said Baltimore’s ballots were on the way, officials are scrambling to get them | Emily Opilo/Baltimore Sun

An out-of-state vendor failed to mail hundreds of thousands of ballots to Baltimore voters for nearly a week despite assuring Maryland they were on the way, officials revealed Tuesday amid growing concerns over administration of the June 2 primary. U.S. Postal Service trucks have been driving overnight shifts since officials learned of the problem Sunday, ferrying ballots from Minnesota to Maryland where they are placed into the local mail stream, said Nikki Charlson, deputy administrator of the Maryland Board of Elections. “We have significant unanswered questions about the process, and after the election, we will require a full accounting with a particular focus on Baltimore City ballots,” Charlson said. She said the state had delivered necessary voter information to the company in time for ballots to be mailed more than a week ago. “We are extremely disappointed that the vendor has failed to deliver according to the schedule,” Charlson said.

Maryland: Primary election ballots delayed in Baltimore because they’re mailed from out-of-state | Kate Amara/WBAL

Some registered voters in Baltimore City have yet to receive their mail-in ballot for Maryland’s presidential primary on June 2. Maryland elections officials said the ballots are in the mail. Because of the coronavirus, the election is designed to be an all vote-by-mail election. Baltimore’s ballots didn’t get sent on May 8 as elections officials had been saying, but rather, a week later on May 15. Elections administrators confirmed the delay Sunday. Baltimore City Council President Brandon Scott, who’s also a candidate for mayor, said he has yet to receive a ballot. “Right, but for me, it’s much bigger than me. It’s not that just I didn’t get it — all of my neighbors didn’t get it. All of my family didn’t get it,” Scott said. “Look, it’s just unacceptable, it’s just unacceptable. If they knew that, they should have made us aware.” But elections officials said the print shops are out-of-state. The ballots were printed in Minnesota, Florida and Ohio, and mailed to Marylanders from there.

Maryland: About 1 in 10 ballots went undelivered to Baltimore City voters during 7th Congressional District special election | Emily Opilo/Baltimore Sun

Nearly 1 in 10 ballots could not be delivered to Baltimore City voters during the special election in April, raising concerns for the June 2 primary, which is also being conducted by mail. The data, released by the Maryland Board of Elections late Tuesday, shows that 20,367 of the more than 230,500 ballots sent to Baltimore City voters could not be delivered before the April 28 special election. An additional 4,355 ballots were undeliverable to Baltimore County voters, while 3,886 were not delivered to Howard County voters — about 3% of all ballots in those two jurisdictions. The figures are being calculated as state election officials take stock of the lessons learned from Maryland’s first election held primarily by mail. The special election, which was held to choose a successor for the late U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democrat, was conducted by mail by order of Republican Gov. Larry Hogan in response to the new coronavirus pandemic. The rapidly spreading virus has killed nearly 1,700 Marylanders and sickened more than 34,000 others, forcing the closure of businesses and a stay-at-home order that has been in place for Maryland residents since March. More than 480,000 ballots were mailed for the special election, which included only voters in Maryland’s 7th Congressional District. The district includes parts of Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Howard County. Voters were strongly encouraged to return the ballots via mail using postage-paid envelopes or by placing them in drop boxes offered in each of the three jurisdictions in the district.

Maryland: Ignore the date on your vote-by-mail ballot. Maryland’s election is June 2. | Emily Opilo/Baltimore Sun

Don’t be fooled by the April 28 date on your vote-by-mail ballot — Maryland’s primary is June 2. As ballots arrive in mailboxes beginning this week for the state’s first full-scale election held primarily by mail, election officials are instructing voters to ignore the date at the top of the ballot. That’s because the ballots sent to the state’s more than 4 million eligible registered voters are marked with the original date for the primary. Republican Gov. Larry Hogan postponed the primary in mid-March as it became increasingly clear the coronavirus pandemic was going to make the state’s traditional polling places a health hazard. The COVID-19 respiratory illness caused by the virus has killed nearly 1,300 people in Maryland and infected more than 27,000. However, the ballots were printed in advance of the governor’s decision, said Nikki Charlson, deputy administrator for the State Board of Elections. “To change the date would have meant that we would have started building the ballots from the very beginning,” she said “That is a deliberate process, and to rush it introduces risk to the election.” Instead, the Board of Elections included instructions with the ballots that point out the incorrect date. The instructions, which include a list of locations for drop boxes and limited in-person voting centers, were printed more recently.

Maryland: Mail-in special election for Cummings seat Tuesday | Jenna Portnoy and Ovetta Wiggins/The Washington Post

The late Maryland congressman Elijah E. Cummings’s 92-year-old mother begged him, as she lay dying, to protect the fundamental right to vote above all else, he told a congressional committee last year. A major test of government’s ability to do just that amid the coronavirus pandemic will play out Tuesday as officials carry out the state’s first mostly mail-in election. There will be only one race on the ballot: the special election to decide who will complete the remaining eight months of Cummings’s term representing the 7th District, which includes parts of Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Howard County. The election will also help officials work out any kinks in the process before the large-scale primary on June 2, which will include the presidential race and crowded contests for Baltimore mayor, City Council seats and congressional offices. In one of his first executive orders in response to the health crisis, Gov. Larry Hogan (R) postponed the April primary election until June, and later called for a mail-in primary with a handful of in-person polling centers.

Maryland: An election during a pandemic? There’s never been one like Tuesday’s Baltimore-area congressional contest | Emily Opilo/Baltimore Sun

Maryland’s first election since the coronavirus pandemic will not only fill a vacant Baltimore-area congressional seat but test how well voters — and the state — navigate a balloting-by-mail system that had to be hurriedly devised because of the health crisis. There has never been a Maryland election like Tuesday’s, in which voters will decide who will complete the remainder of the 7th Congressional District term of Democrat Elijah Cummings, who died in October. The health crisis has shelved campaign rallies and handshaking, limited in-person voting to three sites, and left election officials to dramatically expand a vote-by-mail operation previously used only for people who requested absentee ballots. “This is the first time Maryland has had a mail-in ballot, and who knows what that will do to participation,” said Matthew A. Crenson, a professor emeritus of political science at Johns Hopkins University. “People are home and there is a lot less to do. When people have time on their hands, do they spend it on politics or Super Bounce Out?” Crenson said, referring to the popular video game.

Maryland: Controversy over decision to open polling places for 7th District special election | Keith Daniels/WBFF

The decision to open polling places in the upcoming special election is causing some controversy. It’s a story of two candidates, and one concern. Democrat and former congressman Kwesi Mfume and republican strategist Kimberly Klacik are in the 7th district congressional race to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Elijah Cummings. At issue, governor Larry hogan’s reversal from only allowing mail in ballots to now allowing open polling places in the upcoming special election, April 28. Some political observers believe democratic voters tend to turn out more at polling places, than choose to mail in their ballots. And the matter has Klacik concerned. “If it’s something that’s been arranged by Kweisi Mfume she probably believes that this is going to benefit the Democratic candidate, mainly him,” said Matthew Crenson, professor emeritus of political science at Johns Hopkins University.

Maryland: The instructions on your Maryland special general election ballot are wrong. You don’t need stamps. | Emily Opilo/Baltimore Sun

As Maryland undertakes its first election held primarily via mail, an early problem emerged this week as ballots landed in voters’ mailboxes: some of the instructions are wrong. The one-page, double-sided instruction sheet included with the nearly 500,000 ballots mailed by Maryland officials last week contains conflicting messages about whether postage is required. The front of the instruction page calls for voters to put two stamps on the envelope included with their ballot. The back says that postage is prepaid, but gives voters the option of using stamps to defer the cost to local election boards. The reality is all postage is prepaid. Now, state election officials are scrambling to get the message out. “Voters in the 7th Congressional District: You DO NOT need to put stamps on your return envelope before you mail your ballot,” the State Board of Elections tweeted Wednesday. “The postage on your envelope is already paid!”

Maryland: June 2 primary will be conducted by mail with limited in-person voting, governor orders | Emily Opilo/Baltimore Sun

Maryland’s June 2 primary will be conducted largely by mail, Gov. Larry Hogan announced Friday, although in-person voting centers will be offered on a limited basis. Hogan already had rescheduled the election, originally slated for April, for June due to the new coronavirus outbreak, which, as of Friday, had killed at least 171 people in Maryland and sickened nearly 7,000 more. At the same time last month, Hogan ordered to state Board of Elections to come up with a plan to execute the election as the state remains under a stay-at-home order to contain the spread of the virus. “Free and fair elections are the very foundation of American democracy, and our ultimate goal must be to do everything possible to ensure the voice of every Marylander is heard in a safe and secure manner,” Hogan said during a news conference in Annapolis. The plan Hogan approved Friday calls for the state to mail ballots to the more than 4 million eligible registered voters in Maryland. State election officials have said previously that those ballots would ideally be mailed by the end of April.

Maryland: Election board reverses course on mail-only June primary, recommends limited in-person voting | Emily Opilo/Baltimore Sun

Yielding to pressure from voting rights advocates, the Maryland Board of Elections reversed itself Thursday, recommending the state offer at least one in-person voting center in each county for the June 2 primary despite concerns about the new coronavirus outbreak. The board’s new plan still needs the approval of Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. It calls for a minimum of one voting center and a maximum of four in each of Maryland’s 24 counties. The centers would be offered on primary day only at sites typically used for early voting centers, subject to approval by the state. The reversal came just a week after the board recommended against offering such an option, a decision influenced by remarks from Webster Ye, director of the Maryland Department of Health’s office of governmental affairs. Ye warned board members that protective gear would not be available for poll workers and cautioned the outbreak wouldn’t peak until around July 4 — more than a month after primary day. A day later, Hogan dismissed Ye’s statements as “personal opinion.”

Maryland: Confusion reigns supreme for voters, candidates in 7th District Congressional race complicated by coronavirus | Emily Opilo/Baltimore Sun

The governor and the candidates agreed. Despite the ever-tightening grip the new coronavirus continued taking on Maryland, the seat of the late U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings had been unoccupied for too long — and at a critical time. That’s what led Republican Gov. Larry Hogan to announce last month that the special general election for the 7th Congressional District seat, vacant since Cummings’ death in October death, would proceed April 28. One big accommodation was made: Due to the impending public health crisis, voters would cast ballots only by mail for the first time in Maryland. Now, with less than a month remaining until that date, confusion abounds. Not until Wednesday did state officials say the mailing of ballots to voters was underway. Meanwhile, social distancing measures at a print shop inside a state prison scuttled plans to print postcards advising voters of the changes to the upcoming election. And decisions about the logistics of the special election day itself are still changing, delaying messaging from candidates that could be crucial for first-time mail-in voters. “It’s getting so confusing,” said Republican nominee Kimberly Klacik, who has been in regular contact with state election officials. “We don’t know what’s going on at the top.”

Maryland: Legislative leaders call for in-person voting option for June 2 state primary | Emily Opilo and Pamela Wood/Baltimore Sun

The president of the Maryland Senate and the speaker of the state House called Tuesday on Gov. Larry Hogan to explore offering in-person voting as an option during the June primary, in spite of the new coronavirus outbreak. In a letter circulated to members of both chambers, Senate President Bill Ferguson and Speaker Adrienne A. Jones argued that voting is an essential activity, akin to the work of essential businesses that have remained open despite severe restrictions Hogan has implemented during the pandemic. “The state must explore potential options for in-person voting opportunities for a limited number of our citizens to ensure that we are demonstrating that democracy can still flourish in the midst of a public health emergency,” the Democratic leaders wrote. The letter comes as the state Board of Elections prepares to submit a plan to Hogan on the logistics of the June 2 primary, in which Marylanders will nominate candidates for president and the U.S. House. Baltimore voters will also nominate candidates for mayor, City Council president, comptroller and council seats. Earlier this month, Hogan issued an executive order postponing the primary from April 28 in response to the virus outbreak. At the same time, the Republican governor ordered the board to come up with a plan by Friday for how to carry out the rescheduled primary.

Maryland: Election board’s plan for no in-person voting is ripe for legal challenge, voting rights groups say | Emily Opilo/Baltimore Sun

When members of the Maryland Board of Elections convened, they knew they would be asked to make a near-impossible decision. Offer in-person centers to ensure every possible voter could participate in the June 2 primary, but risk the exposure of election staff and volunteers to a mysterious and deadly viral pandemic? Or hold an election exclusively with ballots sent by mail, a system that would exclude some of the most disadvantaged voters — people with disabilities, those without housing and people temporarily displaced by the spreading outbreak? Having listened to stern advice on both sides of the issue, board members came down on the side of public health, opting for a draft plan that does not include in-person polling. But such a decision would leave Maryland vulnerable to legal challenge, according to the heads of several voting rights groups and the Maryland attorney general’s office. “I just want to make clear that it is excluding that subset of the population from being able to independently and privately vote,” Andrea Trento, a lawyer from the attorney general’s office who serves as counsel to the state Board of Elections, warned the board Wednesday.

Maryland: Elections board to recommend no in-person voting for June primary | Emily Opilo/Baltimore Sun

The State Board of Elections is recommending that there be no in-person voting for the June 2 primary due to the new coronavirus pandemic, pushing citizens to mail-in or drop-off ballots that would be sent to every one of Maryland’s more than 4 million voters. Leaning on advice from state health officials, who said they could not guarantee protective equipment for poll workers, board members opted Wednesday against allowing in-person voting — even under limited circumstances. State election officials presented that path, along with other choices, at an online meeting of the board. Under the current plan, which remains in draft form but must be submitted by April 3 to Gov. Larry Hogan, all eligible voters would receive ballots by mail before June 2. Voters could then cast those ballots by mail, using a postage-paid envelope included with the ballot, or place them in drop boxes at locations yet to be determined. The five-member board was ordered last week to submit the plan to the governor as part of his executive order to postpone the state’s April 28 primary. At the same time, the governor ordered a special general election for the 7th Congressional District, also slated for April 28, to be held on schedule but by mail only. He stopped short of making a decision on the mechanics of the June 2 primary, but ordered the upcoming report from the board.

Maryland: Election rights advocates call for Maryland to send ballots by mail in June primary | Emily Opilo/Baltimore Sun

Several groups advocating for election rights delivered a letter to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Wednesday urging him to offer widespread voting by mail in the June primary and to establish a voting rights task force. The letter, signed by Common Cause Maryland, the League of Women Voters of Maryland, Maryland Public Interest Research Group and the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland calls for the state to conduct its primary by mail. Hogan, a Republican, announced Tuesday that he was delaying the state’s April 28 primary until June 2 in response to the new coronavirus, which as of Wednesday had sickened at least 85 Marylanders. A special general election to select someone to fill the remainder of the late Elijah Cummings’ congressional seat remains scheduled for April 28, but will be conducted by mail-only balloting. The groups behind the letter said they were encouraged by Hogan’s emergency measures in response to the virus, but said they remained concerned about the safety of poll workers and voters even in a delayed primary. Maryland’s poll workers, most of whom are senior citizens and at higher risk if they contract the virus, are likely to stay home, leaving polls understaffed, the letter stated.

Maryland: Primary moves to June amid coronavirus pandemic; voters to pick Cummings’ replacement by mail in April | Luke Broadwater and Pamela Wood/Baltimore Sun

Maryland will postpone its April 28 primary to June 2 because of the spreading coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Larry Hogan ordered Tuesday. The governor is issuing a proclamation Tuesday to move the date of the primary, which includes the Baltimore mayor’s race, U.S. House contests and the presidential primary. Early voting will begin May 21 and run through May 28. “I have two main priorities — keeping Marylanders safe and protecting their constitutional right to vote,” Hogan said at a news conference in Annapolis. Hogan will direct the State Board of Elections to develop a plan by April 3 to carry out the primary that addresses people’s concerns about the election and preventing the further spread of the disease. Meanwhile, a special election in the 7th Congressional District will be held using absentee ballots only. It is to fill the seat of the late U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democrat who represented parts of Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Howard County. “While there are many valid reasons for unease and uncertainty right now, ensuring that the voices of Maryland citizens are heard shouldn’t be one of them,” the governor said.

Maryland: Primary date unchanged, but Gov. Hogan says state is working on ‘contingencies’ | Emily Opilo/Baltimore Sun

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said the state is “working on contingencies” for the April 28 primary as other states postpone or offer mail-only voting for their upcoming elections due to the new coronavirus. During a news conference Monday in Annapolis, Hogan was asked about the primary after he announced a decision to close bars, restaurants, movie theaters and gyms across the state. The governor said he was “actively taking a look” at the issue, but chose to focus on restricting public gatherings Monday due to the St. Patrick’s Day holiday coming up on Tuesday. “We’ll try to maybe tackle that one tomorrow,” Hogan said of the primary. “But we are working on contingencies and getting input about what we have to do about the April primary.” Hogan has declared a “state of emergency” in Maryland due to the coronavirus. With that in place, state law allows the governor to issue a special proclamation to specify alternate voting locations, specify alternate voting systems or even postpone elections. No legislative approval is necessary.

Maryland: Tech That Caused Problems During Maryland’s Special Election Will Be Used Again | Dominique Maria Bonessi/WAMU

The Maryland State Board of Elections will use the same wireless technology that slowed voter registration in the state’s special election earlier this month for races later this year. Issues occurred when the electronic poll books, the iPad-like devices used to register voters, had trouble connecting to the state’s main server in Annapolis. The poll books connect to the main server through cellular routers that help transfer voter information to ensure that double voting doesn’t occur. “We have confirmed that the database became locked when performing multiple functions simultaneously,” said Nikki Charlson, administrator for the board. “This prevented electronic poll books from retrieving the requested voter information and slowed down the check-in process.” Charlson said the board is conducting additional testing on the poll book database. To avoid having technological problems in April’s primary election and November’s general election, Sen. Cheryl Kagan (D-Montgomery County) is proposing a bill that would avoid counting absentee ballots until after the regular count.

Maryland: Board of Elections halts wireless networks after glitch | Steve Thompson /The Washington Post

Maryland election officials have removed a requirement that some counties use an expanded wireless network during this year’s elections, after the network caused slowdowns during the special primary election last week. Opponents of the cellular networking system are pointing to delays during the special election in Maryland’s 7th congressional district as vindication of their concerns about cost and security risks. The primary was a day after technical problems threw Iowa’s Democratic caucus results under a cloud of uncertainty. State Sen. Cheryl C. Kagan (D-Montgomery) says the networking equipment is costly, unnecessary and vulnerable to hackers. She is sponsoring emergency legislation to ease deadlines under which local officials must tally votes, a move intended to remove the justification given by state election officials for using the new network. “If these wireless devices malfunctioned when only 60,000 voters came out for a special election, how can you rely on them when we’re expecting roughly one and a half million voters on primary election day?” Kagan said this week.

Maryland: Elections officials drops plan to make largest counties share data with state over wireless network on Election Day | Kevin Rector/Baltimore Sun

Maryland elections officials said Friday they will no longer require the state’s largest jurisdictions to use a wireless network to transmit voter information to the state during its upcoming primary and general elections, after the network caused a significant slowdown during voting in the special 7th Congressional District primary. Baltimore City and Montgomery County promptly opted out. Howard County said it would keep using the network, pending a review. The network, which cost about $2 million in federal funds to set up, was used for the first time Tuesday in Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Howard County, where voters were electing nominees to fill the remainder of the late U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings’ term in the House of Representatives. The Maryland Board of Elections said it could return the network to service in the future but won’t require its use in the April 28 primary or in the general election on Nov. 3, when voter turnout is expected to be far larger than Tuesday. “We’re just making a decision for the 2020 elections. 2022 is two years from now. We see the need and benefit of it, so I would say it’s not scrapped. It’s just been postponed,” said Nikki Charlson, the board’s deputy administrator. “We always hope that every voter has a good voting experience, and when they don’t, we take that seriously, and that’s what we’ve done.” The network connects tablet-like pollbooks that poll workers use to check in voters, allowing the workers to transmit information to the elections board in real time.

Maryland: Board of Elections to use more wireless networking in 2020 | Steve Thompson /The Washington Post

Maryland election officials plan to use an expanded wireless network during the 2020 elections, prompted by a new law allowing people to register to vote on Election Day. But at least one lawmaker and a local elections board are questioning whether the new system will be worth the cost and will be safe from hackers. A cellular network will transmit new registrations from local polling places to state elections officials throughout Election Day, allowing officials to update voter lists that help meet objectives including that no one vote twice. “It’s creating a path, a road, for the voter check-in data to go from the poll books to our server here,” said Nikki Charlson, the deputy administrator at the Maryland State Board of Elections. She said the step is necessary to enable “local officials to do their research to prepare to count the votes.” Charlson said the only information the network will carry is who is registered and has voted, not how any person voted. The same type of network is used by law enforcement and public safety agencies, she said. “It’s using cellular data, but it’s a secure and closed network,” she said. “No one can find it, and the data’s encrypted, and the network is encrypted.” The state already uses a similar, though smaller-scale, network to upload new registrations during early-voting periods. “So this was taking something we did in early voting and bringing it to Election Day,” Charlson said. But state Sen. Cheryl C. Kagan (D-Montgomery) said the networking equipment, which will cost counties hundreds of thousands of dollars, is not needed and “makes us more vulnerable to hacks and attacks.”

Maryland: Maryland was never in play in 2016. The Russians targeted it anyway. | Dana Priest/The Washington Post

Russia’s Twitter campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election in Maryland began in June 2015, 17 months before Election Day, when the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency opened an account it called @BaltimoreOnline and began tweeting about local news events. Its third tweet was a retweet of a WBAL-TV story about a 5-year-old boy who’d shot himself in the foot in an alley on North Mount Street, the same street where 11 blocks away Freddie Gray encountered police who loaded him into a police van for a race across the city that left him fatally injured. The tweet fit neatly into what would become a pattern for Russian activities in Maryland, a solidly Democratic state that hadn’t favored a Republican presidential candidate since 1988 and wasn’t in play in 2016. Yet, the IRA, the Russian troll factory U.S. prosecutors blame for the massive disinformation campaign during the 2016 campaign, devoted enormous attention and preparation to its Maryland campaign, all in a likely effort, experts say, to widen racial divisions and demoralize African American voters.

Maryland: National Federation of the Blind sues State Board of Elections over ballot privacy | Danielle E. Gaines/WTOP

A group of Maryland voters is suing the state of Maryland, alleging that state policies require them to cast a segregated ballot. The National Federation of the Blind, its Maryland affiliate and three blind registered Maryland voters — Marie Cobb, Ruth Sager and Joel Zimba — filed a lawsuit against the Maryland State Board of Elections in U.S. District Court on Thursday. The lawsuit alleges the elections board is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act and other laws by maintaining a segregated system of voting that denies blind voters their right to a secret ballot and an equal voting experience. At issue are the state’s policies for using ExpressVote ballot-marking devices – which can allow voters who are blind or have motor disabilities to use headphones, magnification, touchscreens and other features to independently cast ballots. The machines do not record votes directly but mark a paper ballot that is printed and scanned. ExpressVote paper ballots are a different size and shape than paper ballots filled out by hand, making those votes cast by Marylanders with disabilities immediately identifiable, advocates say.

Maryland: Baltimore creates cybersecurity review panel following ransomware attack | Maggie Miller/The Hill

Baltimore City Council President Brandon Scott announced the creation of a Committee on Cybersecurity and Emergency Preparedness on Thursday, as the city works to restore the systems taken down by a debilitating ransomware attack last week. “This cyber attack against Baltimore City government is a crisis of the utmost urgency,” Scott said. “That is why I will convene a select committee, co-chaired by Councilman Eric Costello and Councilman Isaac ‘Yitzy’ Schleifer, to examine the City’s coordination of cybersecurity efforts, including the Administration’s response to the cybersecurity attack and testimony from cybersecurity experts.” A type of ransomware known as “RobinHood” took down several of the city’s services last week, including some of the capabilities of the Baltimore City Department of Transportation, the Department of Public Works, and the Department of Finance. The city is also currently unable to send or receive email.

Maryland: Hogan, Franchot grill elections director Lamone over delayed release of voting results | Baltimore Sun

Gov. Larry Hogan and Comptroller Peter Franchot on Wednesday grilled the administrator of Maryland’s elections — after problems on Election Day in November caused polls to stay open late and postponed the release of results for hours. The Maryland State Board of Elections did not post election results online on Election Day until after 10 p.m. — two hours after polls were scheduled to close in the state. Hogan said he and many others were frustrated they had had to wait for hours for the results to be announced. “This was a black eye for Maryland around the country,” Franchot told Maryland elections administrator Linda H. Lamone, who appeared before the spending panel. “They were making fun of us on the national television about how bad the Maryland election was being administered,” Hogan said. “You are the Maryland state election administrator.” “Indeed, I am,” replied Lamone, who has served in the role since 1997.

Maryland: Company with Russian investment no longer owns firm that hosts Maryland election data | Baltimore Sun

new firm has taken ownership of hosting Maryland’s elections data after a federal investigation into the Russian ties of the previous vendor. Maryland elections administrator Linda Lamone said Monday the state will use Intelishift, a Virginia-based data center, and its subsidiary, The Sidus Group, through Dec. 31. The Sidus Group was previously a unit of ByteGrid LLC. The FBI revealed in July that ByteGrid was connected to Vladimir Potanin, a wealthy ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Potanin is an investor in a private equity firm, Altpoint Capital of Greenwich, Connecticut, that bought an ownership stake in ByteGrid in 2011. ByteGrid — through The Sidus Group — hosted Maryland’s online voter services, election-night website and voter registration, candidacy and election management systems.

Maryland: In census trial, Trump administration tries to show citizenship question would not harm the 2020 count | The Washington Post

Testimony wrapped up Thursday over the Trump administration’s addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census as government attorneys sought to show it would not harm the accuracy of the count. In the second week of trial at U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Greenbelt, the Census Bureau’s chief scientist, John Abowd, was called to testify by both sides. Abowd, who has testified in similar trials in New York and California, told government lawyers that although the citizenship question would be likely to produce a drop in the initial ­self-response rate and make the count more costly, the undercount could ultimately be mitigated by census enumerators doing a Nonresponse Followup Operation (NRFU). But when questioned by plaintiffs’ lawyers, Abowd said that even if the households that failed to initially respond could ultimately be counted by the NRFU, adding the question would irreparably harm the accuracy of many of those responses. “The increase in cost and the degradation of the data cannot be remediated by NRFU,” he said.

Maryland: Trial on census citizenship question focuses on disenfranchisement in its first few days | The Washington Post

In a trial that began in Maryland this week over the Trump administration’s plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, public policy experts, statisticians, immigrant leaders and a former Census Bureau director said the question would likely produce a less accurate count, and lawyers accused the government of conspiring to deny minority groups their equal rights. The trial, which opened Tuesday at U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Greenbelt, addresses two of seven lawsuits challenging the addition of the question, which Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced in March. Ross’s announcement, which came days before a deadline to inform Congress about the contents of the decennial census, caused an outcry among statisticians, former Census Bureau directors, civil rights organizations and Democratic lawmakers.

Maryland: Legislation would allow ‘ranked choice’ voting in Baltimore, a new way of counting ballots | Baltimore Sun

Baltimore could become part of a growing movement that would offer more voters a chance to participate in its Democratic primaries and a new way to determine the winners. The Maryland General Assembly will consider a bill to allow the Baltimore City Council to establish open primary elections, as well as “ranked choice” voting for primary or general elections. Del. Brooke Lierman, a Democrat who represents southeast Baltimore, prefiled the legislation ahead of Wednesday’s start of the 90-day General Assembly session. It would authorize the Baltimore City Council to adopt such voting systems, if a majority of council members want to. “If we had ranked choice voting everywhere, our democracy would look so much better,” Lierman says.