MARYLAND — This afternoon, the Montgomery County Circuit Court provided legal approval granting the Maryland State Board of Elections’ common-sense request to allow mail-in ballots to be processed as they arrive, so it does not take until as late as early 2023 for election results to be known. Such a delay would have caused particularly acute problems in counties where local charters require that top local officials be sworn in by early December.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Dan Cox has opposed a smooth election process every step of the way, voting against the legislative effort to fix the issue and opposing the emergency court solution strongly supported by Governor Hogan. Cox had no problem accepting the results of the GOP primary which was pushed back by court order but conveniently shifted his posture to an absolutist position against any court involvement for the general election.
In an interview that aired last night, Cox again forcefully asserted that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, putting to rest any speculation that he will ever moderate his MAGA rhetoric. The late counting of mail-in ballots in 2020 in Pennsylvania, where Cox worked for Trump’s legal team, spurred Trump supporters to claim fraud yet Cox made every effort to force that same situation on Maryland’s election this year, for obvious reasons.
“Today’s decision was in the best interest of Marylanders, despite Dan Cox and his failed attempt to force unprecedented chaos on this year’s elections,” said Maryland Democratic Party spokesperson Ernest Bailey. “This week, Cox refused to answer a simple and direct question on accepting the election results as duly certified by the boards, saying it depended on the process and he was ‘not gonna speculate.’ We now can expect a timely processing of election results in November– Will Dan Cox commit to respecting the will of the people?”