How Legit are Maryland Elections?

Jack Gleason, "Challenging Election Irregularities in Maryland"

United Sovereign Americans, a nationwide group dedicated to fair and honest elections, has joined with Maryland Election Integrity, LLC, in filing a lawsuit in Maryland Federal Court against the Maryland State Board of Elections with Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher presiding.

“This action seeks declaratory and injunctive relief from deficient voter registration rolls leading to violations of Federal and state laws, the certification of results from a provably flawed, inaccurate, and obscure process outside the view of impartial witnesses or the public, including the use of voting systems in Maryland that are believed to have void EAC certifications in violation of federal law, and the refusal of the Maryland State Board of Elections to comply with Public Information Act (PIA) requests and Federally required transparency.”

The suit cites multiple federal laws regarding election conduct, including Article 1 Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, Sections 1 and 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the National Voter Registration Act, and the Help America Vote Act.

The lawsuit states:

“Meticulous analysis of the official Maryland State Voter Registration Database reveals a minimum of 79,392 current apparent registration violations…The analysis revealed 1,699 instances of duplicate registrations, 25,084 instances of registrants with questionable inactive status, 3,366 instances of active registrations without a certified US Post Office mailing address, 5,680 instances of active registrants who moved at least 4 years ago, 605 instances of registrations with no residential address, 296 instances of active registrants with a nonstandard address, 1,218 instances of active registrants who are deceased, 883 instances of age discrepant registration (younger than 18 or older than 115), and 40,518 instances of questionable registration date.”

They continue:

“In sum, the voting system error rates are exponentially above the maximum allowable error rates. Inaccuracy and the specter of fraud have irretrievably damaged the reliability and credibility of results. The Maryland State Board of Elections dismissed these concerns without any meaningful review or response and intends to administer and certify Maryland’s 2024 general election under the same inaccurate conditions. Despite mandatory statutory language requiring current and accurate voter rolls, which shall include only the names and registration information of eligible citizen voters, and Maryland law specifying processes to do so, Maryland has failed to keep voter rolls accurate.”

They conclude:

“Plaintiffs allege that voter rolls are highly inaccurate, error rates on the voting systems exceed the maximum allowable error rates, voting systems were not certified correctly, machines have been used that have VOID EAC certifications, large numbers of blank ballots were cast, and the MDSBE is unlawfully withholding evidence of such. This has caused abridgement to their right to vote “[a]nd the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen’s vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise” Reynolds v. Sims, (377 U.S. 533). The right to vote is paramount “[e]specially since the right to exercise the franchise in a free and unimpaired manner is preservative of other basic civil and political rights, any alleged infringement of the right of citizens to vote must be carefully and meticulously scrutinized.” Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964). Inaccurate voter registration practices have led to voting system error rates well above the statutory threshold causing dilution of eligible voter’s votes. Use of the ES&S Voting Systems in a noncompliant manner has resulted in dilution of Plaintiff’s votes and has resulted in an impaired election process resulting in concrete harm to Plaintiff’s rights to vote. Denial of Plaintiff’s PIA requests resulted in Plaintiffs not being able to access information in which they are entitled.”

They are seeking an injunction from Judge Gallagher to force the Maryland State Board of Elections to keep accurate voter rolls and enjoining them from certifying any future elections unless voter rolls are updated, registration records are corrected, and the entire voting process is reformed to follow all applicable federal and state laws. They also seek the decertification of the ES&S EVS 5.2.0.0 electronic voting system currently in use.

Finally, they ask the court to establish a Special Master to guide the Maryland State Board of Elections, among other things, to ensure changes are implemented prior to the November 2024 election to verify voters are U.S. citizens, and the ballot custody process is corrected and auditable.

Maryland Election Integrity, LLC, a group of citizen volunteers in Maryland, is led by Kate Sullivan and David Morsberger. They recently filed a report detailing the results of their statewide voter canvass and their examination of Maryland voter rolls.

Their canvas found 58 inaccurate records, which was 15 % of the 383 records surveyed. The Baltimore County canvass found 61 inaccurate records -- 14% of the 418 individuals contacted.

Based on their results, they calculated that the canvass percentages would equate to 5,625 apparent fraudulent votes in the Maryland 2020 general election.

The team also analyzed Maryland voter rolls and found 79,349 current apparent registration violations, 62,075 voting violations in the 2020 general election, and 27,623 voting violations in the 2022 general election.

United Sovereign Americans was born out of New York Citizens Audit, which has produced similar reports about the voter rolls in New York state for 2020 and 2022. Co-founders Marly Hornik and Harry Haury formed United Sovereign Americans to share what they’ve learned about database investigations and legal strategies to ensure fair and honest elections for our country. They now have chapters in over 25 states doing research and preparing lawsuits.

Regarding the Maryland lawsuit, Hornik said “the Maryland action is the first of many lawsuits we will be participating in to force state boards of elections to comply with clearly-defined federal laws that ensure election validity. Without trustworthy elections, the American public will have no confidence in the announced results.”

The Maryland legal action heralds a new wave of federal lawsuits targeting the sloppy conduct of elections as well as lax, or even criminal, management of voter roll databases across the country. Judicial Watch announced their own lawsuit about board of elections conduct in Illinois this Tuesday.