Baltimore Sun

Lawmakers have begun drafting plans for early voting after Marylanders approved the practice last fall, but the state elections chief urged them Wednesday to limit the process or risk a disaster during next year’s election.

Testifying on voting issues in Annapolis, elections administrator Linda H. Lamone cautioned legislators to abandon a plan that would allow “anyone to vote anywhere,” in favor of allowing voters to cast early decisions only in their home counties.

“Let’s wait until we get our sea legs,” she said, before expanding early-voting options. “We don’t want anything to go wrong.”

With more than 500 styles of ballots across the state — about 100 in Prince George’s County alone — Lamone predicted problems ensuring that voters receive the correct ballot, and steep costs associated with printing enough of the many ballot styles. Maryland is switching from touch-screen machines to optical scanning of paper ballots, making ballot distribution more unwieldy.

Lamone also told lawmakers that early voting could create a serious time crunch for elections officials, with primary and general elections separated by just 45 days. She ticked off the steps between the two elections and concluded that officials would have less than two weeks before Election Day to work with early voting — “if nothing goes wrong.”