GOP election board members emailed activist who is trying to stop election, records show

Source: The Baltimore Banner

Brenda Wintrode
10/21/2024 8:00 a.m. EDT

A leader of a fringe activist group that tried to use the courts to stop November’s election has been urging Republican members of the Maryland State Board of Elections to use their positions to influence how elections are conducted — and the board members have been writing back, according to emails obtained through public records requests.

The dozens of pages of email threads also included speculative voter fraud scenarios discussed between state Republican Party leaders and a GOP election board member.

National democracy watchdogs say they’re seeing interactions like these play out in Maryland and across the country, ahead of a presidential contest in which distrust in elections not only has soared but is part of a larger “playbook.”

Records obtained by American Oversight, a national nonpartisan good-governance watchdog, and shared with The Baltimore Banner revealed exchanges between Kate Sullivan, Maryland chapter director of the group suing the state elections board, and Republican board members Diane Butler and Jim Shalleck.

Read more: https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/politics-power/state-government/election-board-emails-lawsuit-TGZ4FTN62NFBZN46R7U2BVG4VI/

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