Local and state leaders from across Maryland want Congress to pass a law that would bar states from invalidating ballots that are postmarked by Election Day.
In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), a coalition of state delegates, mayors and other local officials slammed President Trump for his recent attacks on mail-in ballots. Comptroller Peter V.R. Franchot (D) and Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D) also signed on.
Trump recently claimed that ballots received after Election Day shouldn’t be counted, and his campaign has filed lawsuits in key states in a bid to stop the ballot counting process.
The elected officials also criticized state laws that prohibit postmarked ballots from arriving after Election Day. Twenty-eight states have such laws, although in Maryland ballots postmarked by Election Day have until the morning of Nov. 13 to arrive at local boards of elections.
“Regardless of the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, it is clear that we need stronger federal protections for American voters so that every vote counts and so that states can no longer so blatantly suppress votes,” the letter reads.
Bennett Leckrone
Reporter
Bennett Leckrone was a Report for America corps member at Maryland Matters through May 2022. He is a December 2019 graduate of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. Leckrone has interned at The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Columbus Dispatch, PennLive.com, The Dayton Daily News and The Troy Daily News.
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