July 17th, 2022 by WCBC Radio

Rumor: If a voter receives an email about his or her mail-in ballot that ends in @marylandelections.us, this email is not from the State Board of Elections and should be discarded.

Fact:  Emails ending in @maryland.gov and @marylandelections.us are legitimate. They are both email domain names that our agency uses.  For example, if a voter receives an email from absentee3.sbe@marylandelections.us, that is one of the emails we use to send information to voters that requested a mail-in ballot. It is important that voters make sure these emails are not filtered into a SPAM folder to ensure they see the email containing information about their mail-in ballot.

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Mail-in Ballots

Rumor: The purple stripe on the mail-in ballot envelopes indicate my political party affiliation.

Fact: The mail-in ballot envelope design is based on best practice guidelines for election mail design for easy recognition and priority handling. The color stripe is used statewide in Maryland and does not indicate political party affiliation.

Rumor: I can bring the ballot I received in the mail or email and cast it during early voting or on election day.

Fact: You can't cast a ballot received by mail or email at a voting center. If you received a ballot in the mail or via email, you must either vote and return that ballot or vote a provisional ballot during early voting or on election day.

Election officials perform audits throughout the entire election process. One of the audits they perform compares the number of ballots issued against the number of ballots counted. If voters are allowed to "trade in" the ballot they received in the mail or email or cast their mail-in ballot at an early voting center or election day vote center, this audit and other reconciliations could not be performed.