BALTIMORE — As the Maryland State Board of Elections moves to rectify a recent error in sending incorrect mail-in ballots, President Donald Trump and state Republicans are calling for the federal government to intervene.

Trump on Monday called for the Department of Justice to look into an incident where a vendor contracted by the board mailed voters the wrong party ballots for Maryland’s gubernatorial primary elections. The president blamed Gov. Wes Moore for the oversight and alleged, without evidence, that the governor “allowed” this error to happen “to make sure that Democrats win.”

Moore’s office did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.

The president on Sunday also pointed to the election board’s error as a reason why Congress should pass legislation requiring voters to prove their citizenship to vote in federal elections. In a post on Truth Social, Trump alleged that “Maryland just had 500,000 Fake Mail-In Ballots revealed.”

Maryland elections administrator Jared Demarinis responded, “NO Fake Mail-in ballots were distributed. The wording in President Trump’s post regarding Maryland’s election seeks to mislead, sow distrust and create misinformation.”

Trump’s comments follow the Maryland Freedom Caucus also urging a federal audit of Maryland’s voter roll — an issue unrelated to the identified error with mail-in ballots for this year’s elections. Maryland Republicans in recent months have been calling for federal audits of the state voter roll, citing voter fraud concerns despite a lack of evidence.

The board announced Monday plans to send new ballots to all Maryland voters who requested a physical mail-in ballot, correcting an issue with a vendor, Taylor Print and Visual Impressions Inc., that mailed voters the wrong-party ballots for the gubernatorial primary elections. The board announced earlier this month that over 500,000 voters had requested mail-in ballots.

Voters who received their ballots electronically weren’t affected by the company’s error, the board said in a news release. Mailing new ballots is “the only course of action to ensure the integrity and security of mail-in voting,” the release added, since Taylor Print and Visual Impressions Inc. was unable to accurately identify those who did and didn’t receive the correct ballots.

Voters receiving replacement ballots will be notified as of Monday, according to the board of elections, and new ballot envelopes marked “REPLACEMENT BALLOT INSIDE” will be sent on a rolling basis as replacement ballots and envelopes are reproduced. Production of replacement ballot packets will begin May 19, and mailing will be completed no later than May 29, the board added.

The Sun asked the election board to provide details on how much will be spent on new mailing efforts and how it will be paid for. The board did not respond to multiple requests for comment by deadline.

Economic analysts haven’t raised any red flags about the cost to fix this error. Daraius Irani, vice president of Business and Public Engagement at Towson University, said the cost of printing new ballots will seem like “a big amount” to the average Maryland household. But relative to the state budget, he emphasized, “it’ll be small.”

Kali Schumitz, vice president of external relations at the Maryland Center on Economic Policy, noted that Maryland already doesn’t spend much on election-related operations, adding that according to the fiscal 2027 budget, the average cost per person for election operations will be $11. Still, she said, the state should avoid paying to fix ballot errors if possible.

“In general, if a vendor does not adequately perform the services they were contracted to perform, there may be provisions in the contract that would require the vendor to cover the costs of reprinting the ballots,” Schumitz wrote in an email to The Baltimore Sun.

This isn’t the first time the state election board has messed up ballots. Baltimore City ballots in 2020 included a mistake on a referendum question. Because election officials discovered the mistake too late, they put inserts with the corrected language into mail-in ballots and posted notices in city voting booths.

Legal experts noted that mistakes in election administration are bound to happen because, as Mark Graber, a constitutional law professor at the University of Maryland’s Carey School of Law, said, “Human beings make mistakes.” But federal intervention wouldn’t make sense, he added, unless there’s concrete evidence pointing to fraud.

“I would guess that there isn’t a law that requires federal intervention when the state tries to correct the state’s mistake,” Graber said.

Guha Krishnamurthi, another Carey Law professor, said that while “errors in ballots are (a) very common occurrence,” the state should have remedial measures in place.

“It’s not obvious to me that any of this is the kind of thing that would have me doubting the structure of Maryland’s election law authorities,” he said. “I would just say it looks like you got a problem, there was a mistake made, and they’ve got to have a plan to fix it.”

The board of elections has created a webpage, vote.md.gov/2026replacementmib, with detailed information about replacement ballots. Maryland’s primary elections will take place on June 23.

_____

©2026 Baltimore Sun. Visit baltimoresun.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.