Trump calls for DOJ investigation after mail ballot error in Maryland

2026 ElectionTrump calls for DOJ investigation after mail ballot error in MarylandMaryland election officials said a vendor mix-up led to some voters receiving the wrong primary ballot, prompting Trump’s latest attack on mail voting. Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00Canvassers open and review mail-in and absentee ballots for the 2024 general election at the Baltimore City Board of Elections warehouse.Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images fileShareAdd NBC News to GoogleMay 18, 2026, 6:07 PM EDTBy Jane C. TimmPresident Donald Trump on Monday said he will ask the Department of Justice to investigate a recent mail ballot error in Maryland, pushing unsubstantiated claims that it was the result of fraud.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Maryland election officials are reissuing around a half-million mail ballots after saying last Friday a vendor issue led to some voters receiving a primary ballot for the wrong party. Since election officials cannot determine who received the wrong ballot, the state is sending all potentially affected voters new ballots. In a Truth Social post on Friday, Trump said: “In Maryland, they sent out 500,000 Illegal Mail In Ballots, and they got caught! 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.”But the State Board of Elections had previously said the initial ballots will be sequestered and voided, and only the replacement ballots will be cast and counted.“There is no risk of duplicate voting as a result of this issue. Election officials have safeguards in place to ensure that only one ballot can be accepted per voter. Every return envelope/oath has a unique identifier to ensure that a voter can only vote one ballot. SBE has implemented additional safeguards to ensure only the correct ballot is counted for each voter,” the board said in a release on Monday. The...