Maryland primary voters head to the polls Tuesday. Results may not arrive until August.

In some of Maryland’s most anticipated elections this year, one outcome is more likely than any other: Voters will have to wait to know the winners. In Maryland’s largest precincts, results likely won’t be known for days, or even weeks, after Tuesday’s primary. Nearly half a million mail-in ballots have gone out to Marylanders ahead of primary day — an enormous volume compared to any election prior to two years ago, when the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted an exclusively mail-in primary. The sheer volume of vote-by-mail requests and the timing of a gubernatorial contest in the doldrums of mid-July have combined for a “totally unprecedented” election that could lean heavily on the mail-in tally, former Maryland Secretary of State John Willis said.