Maryland Ballot Drop Box Locations, Mail-In Voting Deadlines

Deb Belt
·6 min read

MARYLAND — To help handle the surge in mail-in voting for the Nov. 3 presidential election, the Maryland State Board Of Elections more than tripled the number of ballot drop boxes stationed around the state. A total of 284 ballot drop boxes are in place, up from 75 during the primary election.

Election officials began counting mail-in ballots Oct. 1, the board said. Results will not be announced until 8 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 3.

More than 1.1 million mail-in ballots have been cast so far in Maryland, according to the Board of Elections.

If you want to drop off your completed ballot instead of mailing it, there are locations in each county where you can do so. Check this list for a ballot drop off box.

Here are locations for several counties:

Take the sealed reply envelope with your voted ballot inside to a drop-off location in the county where you live.

Drop-off ballot boxes are open 24 hours a day and have 24-hour security. They will close at 8 p.m. on Nov. 3.

Make sure your oath is signed or your ballot will not count.

“We are closely monitoring reports from the United States Postal Service that delivery times continue to be considerably longer than normal,” Maryland State Board of Elections Administrator Linda Lamone told Capital News Service on Wednesday.

Ballot boxes had to be emptied at least daily through mid-October, and after that twice a day, by a two-person team, Board of Elections Director of Special Projects Tracey Hartman told state lawmakers during an Oct. 2 meeting of the Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive, and Legislative Review.

Related: Mail-In Voting Worries In MD, 23% Plan To Vote In Person Nov. 3

To help ensure your vote is among those tallied in Maryland, here's what you need to know:

  • You can either vote in person during early voting or on election day.

  • Early voting started Oct. 26 and goes through Nov. 2. Each early voting center will be open continuously from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day. Anyone in line at 8 p.m. will be allowed to vote.

  • On Election Day, you can vote at any vote center in the county where you live. The list of Election Day vote centers will be updated as it is finalized. On Nov. 3, vote centers are open continuously from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. Anyone in line at 8 p.m. will be allowed to vote.

Mail-In Ballots Due Nov. 3

Registered voters in Maryland had to request mail-in ballots by Oct. 20; the completed ballots are due on Election Day. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Maryland State Board of Elections encouraged people to vote by mail, and a record number of people are expected to cast their ballots in this manner.

Use the envelope provided with your ballot. You can:

Visit the voter look-up website to verify the status of your mail-in ballot. If you have questions, contact your local board of elections.

While there is an option for voting by internet, it is slower, according to the Maryland Board of Elections, which reported online ballots slow down the overall vote count after the election.

Related:

Mail-In Voting Across The U.S.

With guidelines changing in many states, more than 80 percent of all American voters will be eligible to receive a ballot in the mail for the 2020 election, by far the most in U.S. history.

That's a result of 20 states loosening vote-by-mail laws this year due to the pandemic. Data from The Washington Post indicated 100 million people will be eligible to vote by mail either with no "excuse" or citing fears of the coronavirus as a reason. Among them, 51 million people will be automatically sent a ballot in the mail and 44 million people sent an application for a mail-in ballot.

Only six states still require a valid excuse other than coronavirus fears to vote absentee. Five states had already conducted elections solely by mail even before the pandemic.

But will your vote actually count?

In the primary election, a study by the Post showed 534,731 ballots were nixed in 23 states, and NPR found even more — 558,032 in 30 states — in a similar study. In New York City alone, more than 84,000 mail-in ballots were tossed and lawsuits were filed over the legitimacy of the outcomes of some close races.

Millions of people will cast their ballots by mail for the first time in the 2020 general election. Pew Research numbers show the number of people who vote by mail had already been on a sharp increase for years. In 2016, more than 20 percent of voters nationwide voted by mail, a total of about 27 million.

Of the 14.6 million votes cast by mail in the 2016 and 2018 general elections, officials found just 372 possible cases of double voting or voting on behalf of deceased people, according to Electronic Registration Information Center data analyzed by the Post. That equates to a 0.0025 percent fraud rate. The Brennan Center for Justice has described vote-by-mail fraud as "infinitesimally small."

Why are people concerned about a legitimate election with so few documented cases of actual fraud?

Partly, it's problems with the U.S. Postal Service. But equally troublesome are problems that exposed themselves during the primaries. The Post data shows more ballots were rejected in 23 states than the number of absentee ballot rejections reported in the 2016 general election nationwide, in large part because of mistakes in filling out the ballots.

To make sure your ballot is counted:

  • Register to vote: In most states, you can do that online.

  • Follow directions: "If it says fill in the oval, fill in the oval," Amber McReynolds of the National Vote at Home Institute told NPR.

  • Send it back: Make sure to mail in your ballot well ahead of the deadline.

President Donald Trump, who voted by mail in the Florida primary and praised his home state's absentee voting system, has often said — with no supporting data — that the upcoming election will be the "most rigged" in American history due to the amount of mail-in ballots expected to be cast.

Legal cases are ongoing involving the Trump administration and several states over mail-in voting.

The Associated Press contributed reporting to this story.

This article originally appeared on the Annapolis Patch