Early voting, mail-in ballots in Maryland likely to top 1 million before Election Day

Record numbers of voters in a gubernatorial election year turned out for early voting over the last week, with early voting and mail-in ballots likely to top 1 million before Election Day, according to the latest  data from the Maryland State Board of Elections.

A total of 604,396 voters cast ballots in person during the eight days of early voting that started Oct. 22 and ended Thursday, with a record-breaking 124,189 on the final day. Additionally, local election officials had received 357,650 mail-in ballots as of Thursday, with nearly 300,000 more that had been mailed out but had yet to be returned.

By comparison, a total of 1.5 million people voted in Maryland’s last gubernatorial election, in 2022, and most of them turned out on Election Day.

State Elections Administrator Jared DeMarnis said in a social media post Friday that more than 124,000 voters cast ballots Thursday, which represented “a record breaking last day of early voting” in a gubernatorial election year. DeMarinis added more than 7,300 voters did same-day registration during the early voting period.

Maryland turnout reflected a national surge in early voting, with more than 46 million having already cast ballots through Friday by some estimates. It came despite the fact that Maryland does not feature a marquee race as some other states do, as Republicans and Democrats battle for control of Congress.

“I think we’re looking at the top of the numbers, but I think we’re looking at some real turnout better than we’ve seen in quite a few elections,” Nikki Tyree, executive director of Maryland’s League of Women Voters, said Friday.

“It also looks like voter turnout is skyrocketed across the country as well, so that tells us that voters are really paying attention and super engaged in what’s happening,” she said.

According to unofficial early voting figures, Talbot County had the highest percentage of voter turnout at about 24% of the county’s nearly 29,000 eligible voters casting ballots in an early voting center over the past week. The Eastern Shore jurisdiction was the only one to exceed 20% of voters to cast ballots early.

Two other counties came close in early voting, with 19.3% of Queen Anne County’s 41,730 registered voters turning out and just under 19.2% of the eligible 70,346 voters in Calvert County voting.

Tyree attributes some of the voter turnout to a response to what’s happening on the federal level with the Trump administration, including aggressive immigration enforcement and constant filing and threats of lawsuits.

“Some of the voters we’ve talked to honestly, they’re just sick of the scare tactics [and] the fear mongering,” she said. “People are tired of trying to be scared into being quiet, I think that is what’s really driving some of this.”

Voters have questions on Question 3, the congressional redistricting amendment

In addition to electing a governor and all eight members of the state’s U.S. House delegation, the biggest issue on most voters’ ballots this fall is Question 3, the proposed constitutional amendment that would remove many of the restrictions on how the state draws congressional boundaries.

Tyree called Question 3 “confusion to voters.” After she and others with the league explain what the question means to voters who ask, she said many pause. Some don’t realize the question affects congressional redistricting and would likely end up targeting the 1st District, the Eastern Shore district held by Rep. Andy Harris (R-1st), the only GOP member of the state’s congressional delegation.

“A lot of them [voters] are grappling with this idea of they don’t like what’s happening across the country, but at the same time, we only have the one seat,” Tyree said. “So, I think a lot of people, just in their hearts or heads or souls, are just looking at it as like, ‘But would we be disenfranchising these people and does that make us better than anyone else?’”

She continued: “I can’t tell you how to vote. I can just tell you what this vote would do. I don’t know if there’s many other ballot measures that have been presented to Marylanders where we’re asking them preemptively respond to something that is happening across the country.”

Early voting ended Thursday, but polling places will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. statewide on Tuesday, Election Day.