Faulty guides reached more than 40,000 voters; election officials owe the public answers about accuracy, oversight, and cost.
An official voter guide ought to get one thing right before anything else: where you are supposed to vote.
That is a modest expectation. Nobody opening that booklet at the kitchen table should need to investigate whether the government printed the correct polling place. The whole purpose of sending it is to spare people that confusion.
Yet Montgomery County has created exactly that problem.
According to Bethesda Today, Board of Elections President David Naimon said printing errors affected guides sent to 40,640 voters. The booklets included incorrect polling locations and party information. That is a lot of people opening an official document and wondering whether something has changed.[1]
The county says the trouble involved one printing batch covering 11 precincts in Clarksburg, Germantown and Poolesville. Names, addresses, and the sample ballots inside were correct. Voter registration records were unaffected, and the vendor involved prints information guides, not actual mail-in ballots.[2]
These areas just happen to be where more registered Republicans are in Montgomery County. That is something to ponder for a bit.
Imagine a voter who has arranged a ride, squeezed voting into a lunch break, or worked out who will watch the children. That person follows the county’s instructions and arrives at the wrong location. Correcting the misunderstanding may be simple for an election official. Finding another hour in the day may be considerably harder for the voter.
This is why the details matter.
The county began mailing guides September 16. It learned of the problem September 22 and issued its public statement September 23. Voters brought the errors to the board’s attention.[2]
Residents deserve credit for speaking up. Their calls also raise an obvious question: What review took place before those booklets entered the mail?
Somebody should be able to explain how they checked the personalized information, who approved the finished product, and where the process broke down. A printing vendor can make a mistake. Quality control is meant to catch it while the booklets are still at the printer.
The announced response is sensible as far as it goes. Officials requested a vendor review, ordered replacement guides, and said they would mail corrected copies by the beginning of the following week. The vendor also assured the board that guides for the remaining 246 precincts were correct.[3]
Now the board needs to explain how it established that assurance. This is the second time something like this has happened in Maryland in 1 election cycle.
Did the remaining material match the registration data? Were finished copies examined? What additional review will the replacement batch receive? These are ordinary management questions. Asking them should require neither a partisan argument nor a public records battle.
There is also the bill.
Who pays for the replacement printing and postage? Does the contract put that expense on the vendor? What additional staff costs will the county incur? The public statement does not answer those questions. Taxpayers deserve an accounting once the work is complete.
Republicans should insist on those answers and keep the argument practical. Election integrity includes the ordinary work of producing accurate instructions, checking them. Correcting mistakes promptly. Citizen trust grows when officials can show their work.
The replacement mailing should make unmistakably clear that the earlier polling information was wrong. Officials should also explain that a mistaken party label in the booklet did not change anyone’s registration. People should not have to piece together the explanation from news reports or neighborhood conversations.
Nobody needs to pretend that government employees or contractors are incapable of error. They are human. But recognizing that fact does not settle the question of responsibility.
The board has begun the correction. It should finish by publishing the cause, the cost, and the safeguards it is putting in place.
Forty thousand affected voters is ample reason to take that obligation seriously. They were trying to prepare for an election. Getting dependable directions from the agency running it should have been easy.
Endnotes
- Ceoli Jacoby, Bethesda Today, “Incorrect polling place, party listed on some voters’ official information guides.” September 23, 2026. Reproduced by Bethesda Daily.
https://www.bethesdadaily.com/incorrect-polling-place-party-listed-on-some-voters-official-information-guides/ - Montgomery County Board of Elections, “Board of Elections Statement Regarding Mailed Official Sample Ballot & Voting Information Booklet.” September 23, 2026.
https://www2.montgomerycountymd.gov/mcgportalapps/Media_Detail.aspx?NaID=6125 - Kate Ryan, WTOP News, “Error in Montgomery County voter information guides prompts review, reprint.” Published by Maryland Matters, September 24, 2026.
https://marylandmatters.org/2026/09/24/error-in-montgomery-county-voter-information-guides-prompts-review-reprint/
Scott Marshall is a junior writer on Maryland politics and good governance for Direct Line News.
Direct Line News is a Maryland-based free-access publication committed to the Republican reform tradition.
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