Police activity shuts Route 50 ramp to Lanham polling place

Police activity blocked the Route 50 ramp at Whitfield Chapel Road in Lanham and cut off direct access to the Mt. Calvary Baptist Church polling place while Maryland voters were casting ballots in the June 23 primary. Police said negotiators were talking with a man in crisis who was sitting on the fence over U.S. Route 50, and officials later said there was no threat to the community.

The closure landed on Election Day, when every delay mattered for voters who had to reach their assigned polling place before polls closed at 8 p.m. Maryland State Board of Elections guidance requires voters to use their assigned polling place on Election Day, which made the detour around Mt. Calvary Baptist Church especially consequential for anyone headed there in Prince George’s County.

The Maryland State Board of Elections and the Maryland Department of Emergency Management said detours were put in place and additional voting instructions were shared while the roadway remained shut. Route 50 later reopened, but the disruption briefly turned a routine trip to a polling place into a traffic problem for voters, drivers and election workers in Lanham.

The Prince George’s County Board of Elections says voters can check registration, districts, precincts and polling places through its lookup tools, and state election officials urged people to use official election resources when they were rerouted. The county also provides Spanish-language election materials, a safeguard that matters in Prince George’s County’s large and diverse electorate, where clear directions can determine whether a voter reaches the correct site on time.

Maryland’s 2026 primary election page listed June 23 as Election Day and set the mail-in ballot deadline at 8 p.m. that same day, leaving little margin for people trying to vote after being diverted near Whitfield Chapel Road. The incident put a spotlight on how a public-safety response near a polling place can ripple into access to the ballot, even when officials say the community is not under threat.