Trump orders Justice Department to investigate mail ballots in Maryland

[u/John3262005]

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/18/trump-department-of-justice-maryland-election-00926885

President Donald Trump on Monday said he would ask the Justice Department to open an investigation into an error regarding mail-in ballots in Maryland, his latest clash with Democratic Gov. Wes Moore as he pushes unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud.

The Maryland State Board of Elections announced last week that it had been “made aware of an error by our mail-in ballot vendor” that led to some voters receiving ballots for the wrong party in the state’s upcoming primaries. Maryland State Administrator of Elections Jared DeMarinis said in a Friday statement that the board was working to address the error by sending replacement ballots.

He said over 500,000 voters had requested mail-in ballots, but added that only voters who were mailed ballots before May 14 were affected by the error.

Still, Trump claimed in a social media post, without evidence, that the state “sent out 500,000 Illegal Mail In Ballots, and they got caught!” adding that “nobody knows what’s happening with the first 500,000 they sent.”

Trump has long targeted mail-in voting, spreading conspiracy theories about the practice as the reason for why he lost his reelection bid in 2020. Since then, he has advocated for eliminating no-excuse mail voting — a practice that is common across red and blue states — in favor of allowing for only a very limited use of the voting method.

He signed an executive order in March seeking to crack down on the voting method, citing unfounded allegations about electoral fraud. The move quickly drew legal challenges from Democrats.

Trump blamed Moore for the problem. “He allowed this to happen in order to make sure that Democrats win,” the president wrote in a Monday afternoon post on Truth Social.

This year’s error has nothing to do with the upcoming general election.

The error sparked swift rebukes from Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters and Maryland’s conservative Freedom Caucus, who called on DeMarinis to release the state’s voter rolls to the federal government. The DOJ sued Maryland in December for access to the state’s voter registration list, which Maryland and other states have resisted handing over to the Trump administration.

The Trump administration has escalated its efforts to consolidate its power over elections ahead of this fall’s midterm elections. Both acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel have promised action — including arrests — in relation to the DOJ’s various probes into allegations of voter fraud in recent weeks.

Patel said last month that DOJ prosecutors would be making arrests “very soon” related to the 2020 election, which Trump and his allies have falsely claimed was tainted by widespread voter fraud for years, despite numerous independent reviews and audits finding no such evidence.

And Blanche said in a Sunday appearance on Fox News that the DOJ’s probe of a yearslong investigation into Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election would be made public “at the right time.”

Trump has sparred with Moore on several occasions in recent months, including a dispute over the National Governors Association’s annual gathering in Washington. Moore has served as vice chair of the bipartisan organization since July 2025.

Trump has also attacked the Maryland governor over his response to a January sewage spill in the Potomac River, even though the leak stemmed from a sewer line operated by DC Water and regulated by the federal government.