MARYLAND — To the surprise of no one, Republican gubernatorial nominee Dan Cox has again refused to commit to accepting the will of the voters once all ballots have been counted. Cox has repeatedly refused to commit to accepting the results of this year’s election and continues to claim the last election was stolen. Today Cox again dodged a question on that issue and chose instead to attack and attempt to undermine the election process.
Here are the facts:
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Maryland was the only state in the nation to prohibit mail-in ballots from being processed until after the election, which led to delays in ballots being tallied after this year’s primary election.
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More than 345,000 people statewide voted by mail in the July primary, 10 times more than in 2018. As a result, a number of counties, including Baltimore and Montgomery, experienced days and weeks of delays in finalizing election results– The Montgomery County Executive race recount could not begin until 31 days after election day. Voters did not know the final results of all their primary races for more than a month after the polls closed. Experts warned that under such a system for the general election, it could take until as late as early 2023 for results to be known.
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Cox disingenuously has tried to appear aligned with Governor Hogan on this issue. But Hogan strongly embraced the board of election’s decision as far back as August and repeatedly since. In fact, Cox’s lawyer denounced Hogan in court and chose to emphasize after arguments last Friday that “no one else in the government” is aligned with Cox.
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Cox claims that he is concerned about process and opposes court-ordered changes in the middle of an election because they undermine confidence. But just three months ago, after the date of the primary election was pushed back by court order and Cox won, he had no process concerns.
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Cox has repeatedly claimed to support early counting of ballots. But the reality is he not only voted against the legislation that would have fixed the issue but he has called for an end to mail-in voting and early voting, period.
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Last week, Maryland’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, upheld lower court rulings allowing state election officials to begin counting mail-in ballots ahead of the November elections. After the ruling, Cox called on local jurisdictions “to do the right thing and count mail-in votes according to Laws of Maryland, as written,” as if the court ruling were illegitimate, laying the groundwork for future grievances.
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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 has made every effort to force that same situation on Maryland’s election this year.
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Even before the 2020 election, Cox pushed the claim that Democrats could steal the election via mail-in voting.