Maryland voters finally get their 2020 ballots in the mail

Maryland residents are getting a blast from the past. They’ve finally received their 2020 election ballots in the mail. The blank ballots were found in a tray and were delivered over the weekend by the U.S. Postal Service – two years after the election.

“The Postal Service discovered a tray of undelivered mail in a Baltimore facility on Friday, Aug. 5,” a U.S. Postal Service spokesperson, Tom Ouellette told WMAR-TV on Aug. 23 in confirming the finding.

The found “mail was from year 2020 and contained what appeared to be 26 blank ballots mailed from the Baltimore City Board of Election to addresses with a Baltimore ZIP Code,” the USPS spokesman said. “Those mailpieces were delivered Saturday,” or Aug. 26, 2022.

“We deeply regret the late delivery of these mailpieces. The Postal Service takes these issues very seriously and is working to help avoid issues like this by going over our processes and procedures with all employees ahead of the general elections,” said Oulette. “The U.S. Postal Service is fully committed to the secure, timely delivery of the nation’s Election Mail. We are in close communication with the Baltimore City Election Board and look forward to a successful election in November.”

Nick Frisone, of Baltimore, told WMAR that he received his 2020 general election ballot, adding that some of his neighbors received theirs as well in recent days.

“I received my 2020 General Election ballot on August 6, 2022,” he told the outlet. “It’s supposed to be easy to vote this way, but when the post office misplaces them, we can’t,” said Frisone, who added that he likely won’t rely on mail-in voting in future elections.

Maryland had trouble with its 2022 elections. In August, the Frederick County Board of Elections said it would decertify the state’s 2022 primary results in Frederick County after it discovered an serious issues with the vote count. It is just one of hundreds of counties nationwide who have discovered irregularities in vote totals.

Elsewhere in the United States, the U.S. Postal Service was forced to respond after ballots were found discarded in several separate incidents in Southern California.

In June, for example, mail-in ballots were found discarded on a major freeway intersection near San Diego, officials said. Those ballots were discovered on the same day as California’s primary elections on June 7.

A month before that, about 100 unopened mail-in ballots were found on a sidewalk in Hollywood by a woman walking her dog.

“Our office was notified over the weekend of a mail tray found containing approximately 104 unopened, outbound Vote by Mail ballots and additional mail pieces,” the Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office told local media outlets at the time. “Thanks to the cooperation of the person who found the ballots, we were able to quickly respond and coordinate the secure pickup of the ballots.”

–wire services