Maryland Lt Gov rejects Trump’s corruption claims over mail-in voting error: ‘It happens’

Maryland Lt.Gov.Aruna Miller pushed back on President Donald Trump’s allegations of corruption tied to the state’s recent mail-in ballot error after Trump called for a Justice Department investigation into the incident.(om Williams/CQ Roll Call;Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“The administration, they’re a separate body from us, the board of elections,” Miller said.

“And it happens, sometimes,” she continued.“Ballots get mailed the wrong way.It happens almost in every election.

While election administration errors have occurred in Maryland, including a voter-roll software glitch in 2018, there is no publicly available evidence showing that incorrect mail ballots are an “every election” occurrence.

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The state elections board will send out new ballots to all voters who were mailed one before May 14, acknowledging that many voters receiving new ballots may not have been affected by the mishap. 

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The state elections board said there was “no risk of duplicatevotingas a result of this issue,” claiming the state has safeguards in place to avoid this from happening. 

Trump also questioned how the issue would be resolved without any potential threat of duplicate voting.

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President Donald Trump called for the DOJ to open an investigation into some Maryland voters receiving incorrect mail-in ballots for the upcoming primary elections. (Evan Vucci-Pool/Getty Images)

“In Maryland, they sent out 500,000 Illegal Mail In Ballots, and they got caught!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.“So now, they’re going to send out 500,000 more Mail In Ballots, but nobody knows what’s happening with the first 500,000 they sent.” 

“In addition, many of these Ballots went to Democrats, so anyRepublicanrunning in Maryland doesn’t have a chance!” 

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Miller rejected the idea that this issue was intentional or was the result of corruption within the state.

“I don’t think it was in malice, in any bad way that this happened,�“I think it was just error by the vendor.”

State Administrator of Elections Jared DeMarinis also denied Trump’s claim that any “illegal” ballots were distributed. 

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Maryland State Administrator of Elections Jared DeMarinis has defended the state elections board’s response to an unspecified number of Maryland residents receiving the wrong mail-in ballot.(Karl Merton Ferron/The Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service)

Trump said he has asked Attorney General Todd Blanche and the Justice Department to investigate the ballot error, but the DOJ has not publicly announced the opening of an investigation.

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Miller also said that she has not had any information shared with her by theDOJinto what the investigation will entail. 

“We’ll see what the investigation shows,” Miller said.

Hannah Brennan is a Digital Production Assistant on the Politics team.She previously interned at the Aspen Daily News, where she covered local government meetings, community developments, cultural events and nationally significant political events.Her reporting included coverage of the Aspen Security Forum and appearances by prominent leaders such as former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.