Voting hit a snag Tuesday morning at several polling sites in Baltimore City when the polls didn’t open at 7 a.m. as scheduled.
Sixty-eight-year-old Darlene Shell said she arrived at the polling site at Graceland Park/O’Donnell Heights Elementary/Middle School in Southeast Baltimore a few minutes after 7.
“There was like three people ahead of me waiting to get in that they wasn't organized. Didn't have nothing set up,” she said. “It was all scattered. They didn't know where to put the signs, and it was terrible.”
After waiting for a little over an hour, she left. Campaign workers outside the polling site said she wasn’t the only one.
“We would implore them, please come back, please come back,” said Jeanne Davis, who was campaigning for her son, Liam Davis, a candidate for City Council. “They weren't happy, but they did come back, sometimes multiple times, and I believe most of them have come back and voted.”
The site opened at 9:18 a.m., more than two hours late, according to Terrence Thrweatt, vice president of the Baltimore City Board of Elections.
It was the last polling location to open in the city, according to city election director Armstead Jones.
Thrweatt said multiple technical issues delayed the site’s opening, including a malfunctioning router, which poll workers need to match voters with the correct ballots.
He said the delays make him “livid.”
“You have people who sacrifice to make voting happen,” he said. “When we don't open up on time, it's very disappointing to me, … and it makes me question the process myself.”
By the time the doors opened at the polling site at Baltimore’s Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School — known as Mervo — several voters had left, including Brenda Badger.
“I was told that they’re not set up, they’re not ready to have people vote yet, so I’m leaving and planning on coming back later,” Badger said. “What I heard from the people who were standing outside waiting was that they didn’t know how long it would be. It could be 15 minutes. It could be 40 minutes.”
The site opened around 7:45 a.m.
City Councilwoman Odette Ramos said that when the site was supposed to open at 7 a.m., there was no chief election judge, and the judges who were there had received the keys and equipment late.
Ramos said she will push for Mervo to remain open past the scheduled closing time of 8 p.m. to make up for the delayed opening. However, Jones said at 9 a.m. there were no plans to hold polls open late.
Other locations that opened late include Woodhome Recreation Center in Northeast Baltimore and Walter P. Carter Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore’s Wilson Park neighborhood. Jones said the delays at Woodhome Recreation Center were the result of issues related to the voting equipment, while the delays at Carter Elementary/Middle School resulted from “poor judgment on the judge, as far as not knowing how to set it up.”
