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Hello reader,
As I am writing this on Thursday afternoon from the Montgomery County Board of Elections ballot canvass at Montgomery College’s Germantown campus, the race in Maryland’s 6th Congressional District is still too close to call. By the time you read this Friday morning, a winner may have declared victory.
While media outlets may call an election or a candidate may declare victory or concede, county and state elections boards do not call elections or identify a winner until every eligible ballot is processed and the election is certified. That means the election isn’t over.
Inside the ballot canvass, dozens of canvassers are working diligently and expediently in bipartisan pairs to process mail-in ballots. According to state elections board data, the county elections board received a total of 134,771 mail-in ballots by Tuesday evening and still had to process more than 55,000 ballots as of Thursday morning. The teams will meet every other day to work through all of the ballots. On the “off” day, elections workers bundle and prepare batches of ballots as well as conduct research on provisional ballots, verifying that all provisional voters were eligible to vote.
Once or twice a day, board members meet to deliberate on ballots that were referred by canvassers because of unclear votes or other issues. This process is open to the public. On Thursday, I observed the board make decisions on voter intent based on how a voter may have marked out, crossed out, or erased their markings. There is often some debate, but the bipartisan team of board members is usually able to come to a consensus on how the ballot should be interpreted.
The board also determines whether ballots can be “cured.” The most common issue to which this would apply is if a voter forgot to sign the oath on the ballot. In this case, someone will contact the voter to see if the voter is able to retroactively sign the oath.
This week has been a whirlwind. Amid a presidential election that saw high voter turnout, we experienced several pivotal races in Montgomery County and Maryland.
On the state level, voters chose to maintain the state’s Democratic power in the U.S. Senate, with Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) besting former Gov. Larry Hogan (R) to take over retiring U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin’s seat. Voters also decided to enshrine the right to abortion and reproductive health care in the Maryland constitution.
U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Dist. 8) of Takoma Park will continue to represent Maryland’s 8th Congressional District after a landslide victory over Republican challenger and North Bethesda resident Cheryl Riley. Three new faces will join the Montgomery County Board of Education.
And in a decision that will change the face of Montgomery County politics, County Executive Marc Elrich (D) is facing his final two years in office after voters passed a term-limit referendum that will amend the county charter to restrict the county executive to serving two terms. I will certainly be keeping a close eye on how this will impact the 2026 county executive race, and what Elrich will plan to do next.
Regardless of how you voted or what you believe, I know firsthand how an election can cause a lot of stress and anxiety. Montgomery County Health Officer Dr. Kisha Davis provided some words of advice at a press briefing this week that I want to share.
Davis said it is important to monitor your health as there is an uptick in cardiovascular events before and after elections. She said voters may feel aches, pains and other physical symptoms while processing the stress.
"Stress lives in your body,” Davis said. "Give yourself permission to feel emotion. The emotions you have are real ... it is OK to feel however you are feeling.”
I am so grateful for your readership during this election season, and I will continue to report on the impact of decisions that our newly elected leaders will make.
Politically yours,
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