Sorry, Baltimore County Dems, but it could be at least another week before you know your official candidate for this fall’s county executive general election.
State Sen. Jim Brochin formally requested a manual recount of all paper ballots in the race. In figures released by state elections officials on July 6, John “Johnny O” Olszewski Jr., a former two-term delegate for Baltimore County’s 6th District, won the June 26 primary over Brochin by nine votes.
The Baltimore County Board of Elections certified the results July 10. But Brochin says that margin is simply too close to not ask for another tally.
“I just think nine votes—you need certainty, and nine votes doesn’t give you certainty,” he said.
Olszewski’s campaign manager, Tucker Cavanagh, said in a text message that “Johnny is so honored by the outcome” of the election.
“We are very confident in the integrity of the process and the accuracy of the County Board of Elections’ diligent work to make sure everything vote is counted,” he said. “We will be engaged in the recount process, but we are also focused on continuing to share our message and the general election.”
The vote tallies for the Democratic primary for Baltimore County executive released July 6 were: 27,804 for Olszewski Jr., 27,795 for Brochin and 26,835 for outgoing Baltimore County Councilwoman Vicki Almond. Kevin Francis Marron placed fourth with 2,135 votes.
Olszewski—or Brochin, if the recount ends up putting him on top—will face Republican Al Redmer, Jr., a moderate backed by Gov. Larry Hogan who easily beat the more conservative Del. Pat McDonough in the GOP primary last month.
Brochin’s campaign manager, Marc Lazerow, said they were given four recount options, and decided to go with a manual recount of all paper ballots cast in the election. The other choices included “manual tabulation” of reports from voting machines, re-scanning paper voted ballots or manually recounting images of all voted ballots, rather than the actual ballots themselves.
Read the complete story at baltimorefishbowl.com.
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