Trump demanded a DOJ investigation into Maryland's mail-ballot error and blamed Gov. Wes Moore for alleged fraud

On May 18, 2026, President Donald Trump publicly called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Maryland's mail-ballot administration and blamed Democratic Governor Wes Moore for the problem. Posting on X, Trump wrote that "This was done by the Corrupt Governor of the State, Wes Moore. He allowed this to happen in order to make sure that Democrats win," and told reporters that voting fraud may have cost him the state in the 2024 election, which he lost in Maryland by roughly 28 points.

The underlying incident was a vendor coding error, disclosed publicly by the Maryland State Board of Elections, that sent roughly 400,000 voters primary ballots for the wrong party. Because the vendor could not determine exactly which voters had been affected, the board opted to reissue ballots to ensure accuracy. State Administrator of Elections Jared DeMarinis said no illegal ballots were distributed or counted, and noted that Maryland's elections are run by the bipartisan State Board of Elections rather than the governor.

Moore's office rejected Trump's characterization. A spokesperson called the fraud accusation "false and irresponsible," saying the board "identified a vendor error, disclosed it publicly, and is fixing it to ensure every eligible voter receives a valid ballot." Trump offered no evidence for his claim that the error was deliberate. The recordable event is the president's public demand that federal prosecutors investigate an opposition-party governor over a disclosed administrative mistake, paired with an unsupported assertion of election fraud.

Updates

2026-05-22 — DOJ opened a civil rights inquiry and demanded record preservation [4, 5]

On May 22, 2026, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon sent Maryland's elections administrator a letter directing the state to preserve all ballots, mailing records, and other auditable records from the primary, notifying Maryland that the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division was reviewing the ballot error. Dhillon herself characterized the incident as "mistakes" rather than the fraud the president had alleged.

2026-07-07 — DOJ threatened Maryland's top election official with criminal charges [6, 7]

On July 7, 2026, the Justice Department sent DeMarinis a further letter, again from Dhillon, raising the prospect of criminal charges for "criminal conspiracy and civil rights violations" and giving him five days to detail how Maryland would ensure compliance with federal voter-eligibility laws. DeMarinis called the letter an attempt to "threaten and try to intimidate election officials."