Appeal to be Heard Wednesday Against "Arbitrary Disenfranchisement"

March 11, 2005

Annapolis, MD. On March 2 primary day, some several thousand voters went to the polls intending to vote on paper ballots to ensure their votes got counted and to register their lack of confidence in the paperless Diebold voting machines being implemented statewide.

While many election judges at local precincts denied these voter requests, many judges around the state did permit machine critics to cast their votes on 'provisional' paper ballots. However, in the weeks following the primary election, TrueVoteMD.org received dozens of calls from voters from around the state reporting that the State Board of Elections had thrown out their paper ballots and refused to count their votes as cast. Most of these voters stated that they were notified of their disenfranchisment after the 5 day appeal deadline had passed.

One Howard County voter, Helen Colby, was able to file a timely appeal and will plead with the State Election Board to count her vote at a hearing on Wednesday, May 19th at 10:30am. The Howard County Times reported that 22 voters from Howard County were disenfranchised in this manner. TrueVoteMD.org suspects that hundreds of votes across the state were thrown votes thrown out and is considering filing a FOIA request to establish the facts of what organizers deem 'an arbitrary policy to disenfranchise Maryland voters' on the part of the Election Board.

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