Emergency Remedy of Bd. of Elections

Summary

The Court affirmed an order permitting Maryland local election boards to begin canvassing absentee ballots before the 2022 general election. It held that the statute authorizing a circuit court to remedy emergency circumstances affecting the electoral process assigns a judicial function and therefore does not violate separation of powers, either facially or as applied. It also held that the expected absentee-ballot volume and local boards’ limited processing capacity qualified as emergency circumstances despite being partly foreseeable.