Baltimore voters get replacement ballots after primary printing error

Baltimore voters who requested a mail ballot before May 14 had to watch for a second packet after a printing mistake forced election officials to resend corrected ballots across Maryland. The state said the fix was necessary because the vendor could not identify exactly which voters were affected, so officials mailed replacement ballots broadly rather than leave anyone with an inaccurate ballot.

The Maryland State Board of Elections began sending replacement ballots on May 22 and finished the mailing by May 27. The packets were expected to arrive between May 26 and May 31, and they are marked with the words “REPLACEMENT BALLOT INSIDE,” with a return envelope labeled “REPLACEMENT ENVELOPE.” State instructions say voters should destroy the original ballot packet, while local election offices can identify and secure an original ballot if one was already returned before the replacement arrived. Voters who requested a web-delivery print-at-home ballot were not affected.

For Baltimore City voters, the practical question is which ballot counts and which one to ignore. The city’s 2026 primary ballot includes sheriff, state’s attorney, register of wills, clerk of the circuit court and orphans’ court judges, after a candidate filing deadline that passed on February 24. Early voting opened Thursday, June 11, and runs through Thursday, June 18, ahead of Maryland’s gubernatorial primary on Tuesday, June 23.

The state board said the correction was designed to eliminate doubt about the integrity and accuracy of mail voting. Jared DeMarinis, the state’s administrator of elections, said the replacement plan was meant to remove uncertainty for voters and election workers as ballots continued moving through the system. Baltimore City election officials also urged residents to rely on state and local election offices for trusted information as the mailing problem played out.

The result is a primary season with the calendar still moving and the mail ballot process under a microscope. Any Baltimore voter who asked for a mailed ballot before May 14 needed to check the envelope markings carefully, use the replacement ballot if one arrived, and make sure the original packet did not get sent back by mistake.