Absentee Ballots Promise Closure In Md. House Race
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Famous Women Who Underwent Double MastectomiesGAITHERSBURG, Md. (AP) — Election officials in five counties began counting absentee ballots Thursday that will likely resolve the race for U.S. representative in Maryland’s 6th Congressional District.
Democratic U.S. Rep. John Delaney claimed victory a day after Tuesday’s election, but Republican challenger Dan Bongino hasn’t conceded. The former Secret Service agent trailed Delaney by 2,081 votes out of more than 180,000 cast after Garrett County reported its canvass results Thursday.
Canvassers were also counting absentee ballots in parts of Montgomery and Frederick counties, and all of Allegany and Washington counties.
Of nearly 6,400 absentee ballots returned districtwide, about half are from Delaney’s home county of Montgomery. He won 61 percent of the vote at polling places there. Bongino ran strongest in western Maryland, which is more conservative but less populous than the Washington suburbs in Montgomery and Frederick.
Montgomery County Board of Elections President Mary Ann Keeffe said her panel would focus first on the 6th District race in hopes of reporting at least a partial count from there by Thursday night.
“We recognize that the contest in the congressional race is close and that people like to get things finalized as quickly as possible,” Keeffe said before the process began in a nondescript office building behind a Gaithersburg strip mall. Then 12, two-person teams of canvassers began opening and examining mailed-in ballots. Those deemed to have been properly cast were to be counted by an optical scanning machine at the end of the day.
Other counties, with fewer ballots to examine, began announcing results sooner than Montgomery.
Bongino said in a telephone interview that the election’s outcome should be clear by Friday.
“If the writing was on the wall, we certainly would concede,” he said. “Everybody wants a free and fair outcome.”
Both candidates sent observers to the proceedings.
Delaney campaign spokesman Will McDonald, observing the Montgomery County canvass, said counting every vote is important “but we remain confident that when all the votes are tallied, John Delaney will be the clear winner of this election.”
(Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
