Despite court approval to count mail-in ballots early, Baltimore County and several other local election boards say they plan to wait

Although multiple court rulings have cleared the way for mail-in ballot counting to begin ahead of Maryland’s Nov. 8 election, several local jurisdictions, including Baltimore County, do not plan to start until afterward, officials said this week. Ruie Lavoie, election director for Baltimore County, said space constraints in the county’s election office and a late decision by the court system on when counting could begin pushed her to hold off on the county’s canvass until Nov. 10, the Thursday after the election. Locally, Anne Arundel, Harford and Carroll counties also plan to wait to canvass mail-in ballots until after the election, according to notices recently published by each of the local boards.