Frederick County Board of Elections to decertify primary election results

FREDERICK, Md. — The Frederick County Board of Elections plans to decertify the results of the 2022 primary election and meet this week to handle the aftermath.

The board will rescan all mail-in and provisional ballots counted in post-election canvasses. 

Officials say a discrepancy between the total number of votes in the certified results and the number of accepted mail-in and provisional ballots sparked a closer look at the ballots cast in the primary election. As a result of the discovery, the board will be doing a comprehensive review of ballot accounting documents, they said. 

Officials confirmed that the ongoing review currently shows that the discrepancy could be blamed on human errors in ballot accounting that happened during the mail-in and provisional canvassing process. 

The Maryland State Board of Elections was first briefed about the issue on Aug. 6 and they immediately started working towards starting the rescan alongside the Frederick County Board of Elections.

After the election is recertified, both boards plan to work together to review ballot accounting procedures and put in place best practices for accounting moving forward.