Politics |

Baltimore resumes counting mail-in ballots with several city races hanging in the balance

Baltimore began its canvass of tens of thousands of remaining mail-in ballots Thursday morning, a process that could shift the outcome of several races for the Baltimore City Council.

Shortly after 10 a.m., a crew of about two dozen staffers began unpackaging ballots to be fed into several high-speed counting machines. City elections officials said they anticipate scanning 24,000 ballots Thursday, although the machines will likely limit that number to around 20,000.

The total number of mail-in ballots received in Baltimore has been a moving target. State data shows the city received 28,868 mail-in ballots as of 6 p.m. Wednesday. Of those, 12,475 were counted prior to Election Day. By that math, 16,393 ballots should remain to be counted. However, election officials said Thursday that additional ballots have been received and not yet reported to the state.

Ballots placed in ballot drop boxes or postmarked by 8 p.m. Tuesday will be accepted.

Numerous political hopefuls came to the city’s election warehouse Thursday morning to watch the count, many of whom have races that hang in the balance. While the Associated Press called the city’s mayoral race for Mayor Brandon Scott and he declared victory on election night, former Mayor Sheila Dixon has not conceded the race. As of Thursday morning, Scott was leading with almost 51% of of the vote. Dixon had 41.3%, a difference of about 6,300 votes. Staffers from the Dixon and Scott campaigns were both observing the count Thursday.

Also in attendance was Zac Blanchard, a candidate for Baltimore City Council’s District 11. Blanchard is hoping to unseat multi-term incumbent Councilman Eric Costello. Costello held a narrow lead as of Thursday morning. Just 25 votes were all that separated the two candidates. A representative for Costello’s campaign also attended.

“It’s a 25-vote difference, and we expect 1,400 votes to be counted today,” Blanchard said, noting the minimum number of remaining District 11 ballots cast by Democrats. “I just wanted to see the process for myself.”

Several candidates for Baltimore’s 8th council district were also on hand to observe the count. Councilman Kristerfer Burnett, who currently occupies that seat, did not run for another term, and the race has been a close contest between Paris Gray, a member of Burnett’s staff, and Bilal Ali, a former state delegate. As of Thursday morning, Gray had 40.3% of the vote to Ali’s 39.2%. Gray was in attendance Thursday to watch. Ali stopped by briefly.

Gray said he was feeling confident about the race. When it appeared that mail-in ballots were being slowly returned by voters in District 8 — a trend seen across the state this cycle — Gray said he and his team focused their efforts on those voters to try to encourage them to cast their ballots.

“It’s a really cool process,” he said of watching ballot counting. “It’s literally Democracy at work.”

Elections staff were asked to work until 7 p.m. Thursday and counting will likely continue on Friday. Elections officials said there were also several thousand email-delivered ballots to be counted. Those must be manually duplicated onto new forms before they can be scanned, a time-consuming process. Email ballots will not be processed Thursday, officials said.

Provisional ballots, those cast when there are questions about the eligibility or residency of a voter, are counted separately from mail-in ballots. Provisional ballot counting will not begin statewide until May 22.

Jermaine Jones, a candidate for Baltimore’s District 12 council seat, was on hand to watch the count Thursday. Jones, a labor leader who is challenging incumbent Councilman Robert Stokes, said he came because he wanted to learn more about the process. He said he felt confident seeing the staff in action.

“When we think about the election and we think about the residents of Baltimore, we think about them voting,” he said. “But no, it’s also the residents of Baltimore who are counting these ballots, who are doing the work. It’s not just residents participating in the election but it’s actually residents making it happen.”