Anne Arundel County Election Officials Warn of Ballot Collecting Scam

The Anne Arundel County, Marlyland, Board of Elections on Thursday warned of a potential scam involving an individual or group “unlawfully going door-to-door” attempting to collect completed ballots.

“To all registered voters of Anne Arundel County. Please be advised, it has come to the attention of Anne Arundel County Board of Elections that someone/group is unlawfully going door to door and trying to collect completely filled out Presidential General Election Ballots,” election officials said in a statement.

Notice To: Anne Arundel County Registered Voters. pic.twitter.com/ED9H4LTsRm

— Anne Arundel BOE (@annearundelboe) October 1, 2020

The statement added: “The Anne Arundel County Board of Elections would never send anyone, be they an election judge (volunteers), election officials (employees), or voter registration volunteers to go into any neighborhoods to collect or help turn in ballots. Should anyone come to you and tell you they would be glad to take your ballot to the nearest Official Drop Box please know they are not working for any local board of election offices. Do not give a stranger your ballot to turn in for you.”

The development is the latest in a string of concerns regarding voting by mail and possible election fraud. This week, the New York City Board of Elections said that nearly 100,000 Brooklyn voters received absentee ballot return envelopes with the wrong address and names labeled on them.

“There’s just mass confusion about these ballots and what people are supposed to do with them,” Democrat Van Bramer said in an interview with the Post. “People were already not trusting this process and they were already not trusting the Board of Elections to count the ballot right.”

“This apparent typo just has everyone confused and believing these are invalid ballots,” he added. “It’s absolutely outrageous that when everyone is watching them, they still screw up the most basic thing, which is printing the ballot correctly.”

Additionally, Virginia Republican officials said 1,400 voters in the state had two absentee ballots mailed to them.

“We knew the Democrats’ many last-minute changes to our election law would make our elections less secure, but no one could imagine voters receiving two ballots,” Virginia GOP chairman Rich Anderson said of the issue.