On election night, Marsha Herbert, Shannon Hinkhaus and Julie Walsh led the race for three seats on the Carroll County Board of Education. As the Carroll County Board of Elections finishes counting Friday, the top three are Walsh, Sharon Wilhide and Herbert.
It happened in 2022, too.
The reasons are in how Maryland counts ballots, and in the county’s own recent history.
2022: Provisional ballots decided the last seat
On election night in 2022, Tara Battaglia, Steve Whisler and James Miller held the top three spots, and incumbent Patricia Dorsey was fourth with 21,620 votes, The Baltimore Sun reported.
Carroll’s election-night totals that year included only early voting and Election Day ballots. Voters had returned more than 13,000 mail-in ballots by the day before the election, and the county began counting them the Thursday after.
Dorsey received nearly three times as many mail-in votes as Miller and more than twice as many provisional votes, according to the official 2022 results for Carroll County.
Candidate | Early voting and Election Day | Mail-in | Provisional | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Tara Battaglia | 29,419 | 3,156 | 1,494 | 34,069 |
Steve Whisler | 28,045 | 2,850 | 1,303 | 32,198 |
Patricia Dorsey | 21,620 | 6,266 | 2,421 | 30,307 |
James Miller | 25,694 | 2,202 | 1,058 | 28,954 |
Amanda Jozkowski | 20,224 | 5,725 | 2,267 | 28,216 |
Tom Scanlan | 18,429 | 5,305 | 2,016 | 25,750 |
Miller led Dorsey by 4,074 votes on election night. Dorsey’s mail-in votes alone would have left her 10 votes short. With provisional ballots, she finished 1,353 votes ahead.
Carroll wasn’t alone. Five school board candidates across Maryland who led after election night lost once mail-in and provisional ballots were counted.
2026: A similar pattern
Candidate | Election night | After Thursday’s count |
|---|---|---|
Julie V. Walsh | 25,078 | 29,210 |
Sharon Wilhide | 24,301 | 28,702 |
Marsha B. Herbert | 25,612 | 28,082 |
Shannon Hinkhaus | 25,472 | 27,771 |
Lisa Maisano | 22,691 | 26,989 |
Cleveland Christopher Friday | 21,996 | 24,057 |
Election-night totals are derived from the Nov. 5 count. Current totals are unofficial results from the Maryland State Board of Elections, last updated at 6:50 p.m. Nov. 12.
The order changed because candidates drew support from different kinds of voters. Hinkhaus, Herbert and Walsh received the most early voting and Election Day votes. Wilhide, Maisano and Walsh received the most mail-in votes. Mail-in ballots are counted over several days after the election, so their effect shows up late.
Why it takes this long
Mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day still count. Under Maryland law, a mail-in ballot counts if it is postmarked by 8 p.m. on Election Day and received by 10 a.m. on the second Friday after the election. The board can’t finish counting until that deadline passes.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that states can count ballots that arrive after Election Day, in a challenge to a similar Mississippi law. The ruling left Maryland’s deadline in place. The Republican National Committee had argued that federal law requires ballots to arrive by Election Day. Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said “the electorate’s choice is made when voting is complete, not when ballots are received.” Justice Samuel Alito argued in dissent that counting late-arriving ballots violates federal law setting the date of the election.
Provisional ballots are reviewed one by one. Voters cast provisional ballots when their eligibility can’t be confirmed at the polls. The board checks each one before deciding whether it counts.
Maryland used to start later. Until 2023, state law barred election officials from processing mail-in ballots until after Election Day, the only such law in the nation. Gov. Larry Hogan vetoed a 2022 bill to change that. In 2023, Gov. Wes Moore signed a law requiring boards to begin processing mail-in ballots before Election Day. It passed on party-line votes in both chambers.
This year, Carroll’s election-night totals already included some mail-in ballots. In 2022, they included none.
How the count is checked
Bipartisan teams review every ballot. During each canvass, the local board sits as the “board of canvassers,” and teams of two review each mail-in or provisional ballot and its envelope. The teams are bipartisan. The board votes on whether to accept or reject ballots, and a rejection must be unanimous.
No one gets two votes. If a voter returns a mail-in ballot and also casts a provisional ballot, only one is counted.
Anyone can watch. Canvasses are open to the public, and observers can watch teams open mail-in ballot envelopes and provisional ballot applications. Candidates and parties can also appoint official challengers and watchers.
Results are posted where anyone can compare them. The vote totals the state added Thursday match the results printouts posted at the Carroll County Board of Elections in Westminster, which are available for the public to see.
Ballots are audited. After each statewide election, the State Board of Elections runs an independent audit that uses separate software to retabulate images of every ballot cast and compares the totals to the voting system’s results. Local boards also hand-count a sample of paper ballots after general elections, as Carroll’s board did after the 2022 election.
The board’s final scheduled canvass is Friday, Nov. 13. The board expects to certify the results Friday, Election Director Erin Perrone said. The results are unofficial until then.