Board of Elections asks county to fund election worker system and warns of high provisional ballot volume

The Board of Elections asked county leaders to fund several targeted operational enhancements for FY26 — including completion work on an election worker management system — and warned that the board could face major manual‑processing burdens if the system is not finished.

David Naaman, president of the Montgomery County Board of Elections, told the committee the board supports continuing the same service levels used in 2024 and described 2024 turnout: “a little more than 76% of eligible voters turned out to vote,” with roughly 167,000 mail‑in ballots, 155,000 early‑voting transactions and about 172,000 election‑day votes. Naaman said the board also now has more than 120,000 voters on the permanent mail‑in list and expects to keep the same number of polling places and early‑voting centers in 2026 if the council approves those plans.

Staff told the committee the county executive’s recommended BOE package shows an overall decrease from FY25 of about $2.9 million (16.96%), but includes specific increases for operations: a $463,786 overtime adjustment; $300,119 for seasonal temporary staff; $300,000 estimated to finish internal modules of the election worker management system; a $200,000 increase to restore the election judge stipend; and $21,867 to convert two office service coordinator positions from part time to full time. The staff packet also lists roughly $4.9 million in recommended reductions, including printing and mail adjustments and the elimination of some one‑time FY25 items.

“TEBS anticipates completion of the internal modules in FY25,” council staff read from the packet, but the BOE told the committee that without the recommended funding its team would have to process roughly 7,000 applications and score more than 5,000 online quizzes by hand for the 2026 cycle — tasks that would create significant operational delays and require additional temporary hires. “We need an automated system to help us assign volunteers to polling places,” Election Director Boris Brykovich said, adding that the legacy platform was more than a decade old.

Committee members pressed BOE on why provisional ballots spiked in 2024. BOE officials said the county saw about 27,000 provisional ballots in the general election, and that a large share stemmed from voters who requested a mail‑in ballot but nonetheless came to vote in person on election day; staff estimated roughly 18,000–19,000 of the provisionals occurred on election day. Brykovich said other causes include same‑day registrations and voters who requested web‑delivered print‑at‑home ballots but did not realize their ballot arrived electronically.

The BOE described outreach steps to reduce provisionals: targeted emails (about 400,000 were sent reminding voters what to do after requesting a print‑at‑home ballot), forms allowing voters to remove themselves from the permanent mail list, and in‑person education at daycare and senior centers to minimize long in‑line experiences.

Naaman also reported that the board successfully proposed legislation in Annapolis to move the primary election one week earlier; if signed by the governor, the primary would occur on Tuesday, June 23, 2026, which the BOE said should avoid conflicts with Juneteenth, Father’s Day and summer camps.

Council staff requested a more detailed TEBS breakdown of the estimated $300,000 management‑system cost and a project timeline before the committee presents the budget to the full council in early May.

Next steps: BOE will continue planning for 2026, and council staff will seek a vendor breakdown and schedule for the management system ahead of the full‑council review.