Pittman Anticipates Victory As Anne Arundel County Awaits Mail-In Ballot Count

Editor's Note: This story was last updated Wednesday at 4:48 p.m.

ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, MD — Incumbent Steuart Pittman (D) trails challenger Jessica Haire (R) in the race for Anne Arundel County executive. Pittman is down nearly 11,000 votes, but he still sees a path to victory.

Officials already tallied all the early voting and Election Day data, but they still have to count the mail-in ballots.

That process starts Thursday and continues through Nov. 18. The Anne Arundel County Board of Elections must continue accepting mail-in ballots until that deadline as long as they were postmarked by the time polls closed on Tuesday.

The county reported that it had received around 46,000 mail-in ballots by Election Day. Democrats submitted about 27,000 of those ballots compared to the Republicans' roughly 10,000.

That gives the Democrats an advantage of around 17,000 mail-in ballots, meaning Pittman may have enough supporters to overcome his early deficit.

"We are confident that once all ballots are counted, Steuart Pittman will be re-elected County Executive," his campaign said Wednesday morning on Facebook. "Our team is taking steps to ensure every vote cast will be counted, and will work tirelessly to guarantee every Anne Arundel voter's voice is heard."

Haire had not yet commented on social media by the time this story was last updated.

Challengers also lead incumbents in two County Council battles.

Republican challenger Noel J. Smith holds a narrow lead over Democratic incumbent Allison Pickard in District 2. Former Annapolis Mayor Mike Pantelides (R) also has the edge on incumbent Lisa Brannigan Rodvien (D) in District 6.

The candidates are separated by less than 800 votes in both of those County Council contests.

Related:

• Cox Concedes, Moore Declares Victory As MD's First Black Governor
• MD Legalizes Weed, Updates On Referendum Vote Counts: AP

Unofficial Vote Tallies

The table below shows the current unofficial vote tallies.

The names of incumbents are bolded and starred. Every candidate's name is linked to their campaign website. Voters can check which district they live in by using this tool.

County Executive

• Jessica Haire (R): 80,657
• Steuart Pittman* (D): 69,794

County Council District 1

• Jeremy M. Shifflett (R): 7,746
• Pete Smith (D): 9,280

County Council District 2

• Noel J. Smith (R): 8,356
• Allison Pickard* (D): 8,081
• David Sgambellone (Libertarian): 609

County Council District 3

• Nathan Volke* (R): 18,907
• Michael Gendel (D write-in): 0
• Other write-ins: 916

County Council District 4

• Cheryl Renshaw (R): 5,439
• Julie Hummer (D): 11,462

County Council District 5

• Amanda Fiedler* (R): 16,393
• Carl James Neimeyer (D): 10,567

County Council District 6

• Mike Pantelides (R): 11,797
• Lisa Brannigan Rodvien* (D): 11,041

County Council District 7

• Shannon Leadbetter (R): 15,318
• Shawn Livingston (D): 9,310

Visit elections.maryland.gov to see the results of every race in the state.

Are There Any Referendums?

Several jurisdictions also have local ballot questions. Here are the early tallies for Anne Arundel's referendums seeking to amend the county charter to:

• Require the Anne Arundel County Veterans Affairs Commission.
  • (113,662 yes, 20,262 no)
• Provide that no person elected or appointed to the office of County Councilmember may serve more than three full consecutive four-year terms.
  • (110,201 yes, 32,316 no)
• Require that the compensation paid to each member of the County Council be paid after consideration of recommendations of the Salary Standard Commission that are approved by ordinance of the County Council.
  • (103,654 yes, 30,197 no)
• Remove the requirement that copies of bills and notices of public hearings be posted on a bulletin board and to require that electronic copies of bills and notice of any public hearing be published to the County Council website and that printed copies of bills be made available to the public and press and that bills receive required publication.
  • (100,970 yes, 36,048 no)
• Clarify the differences between the two types of emergency ordinances allowed under the Charter and the legislative procedure that applies to each.
  • (114,025 yes, 17,616 no)
• Allow the County Council to assign additional functions, duties, and personnel to the County Auditor that are related to the finances and financial affairs of the County.
  • (99,586 yes, 33,922 no)
• Change the name of the Charter Revision Commission to the Redistricting and Charter Revision Commission and to amend the date by which a decennial Redistricting and Charter Revision Commission must be appointed by the County Council.
  • (87,456 yes, 40,830 no)
• Be gender neutral consistent with changes recommended based on a review by the County Attorney.
  • (73,553 yes, 67,629 no)

These ballot questions will pass if they collect a plurality of votes. That means they just need to secure more yes's than no's.

What Are Democrats Saying?

Ruth Goldberg voted for incumbent Pittman over Haire in the county executive race. Haire is the challenger and current District 7 County Council member.

"That's a race that I don't have really strong feelings about," Goldberg told Patch after voting at the Odenton Baptist Church. "I just voted Democratic because I'm a Democrat."

Goldberg was more passionate about the gubernatorial election.

The 63-year-old supported Wes Moore (D), a veteran who is endorsed by former President Barack Obama (D). She preferred Moore's liberal policies over the conservative approach of his opponent, Dan Cox (R).

Cox is a current state delegate representing Carroll and Frederick Counties. He is endorsed by former President Donald Trump (R).

"I can't even begin to say how ridiculous that I thought some of those things he said were," Goldberg said of Cox. "It's a matter of credibility and integrity."

Goldberg, who is a federal government employee, also voted to legalize recreational marijuana in the statewide referendum.

"The criminal justice system is disproportionately focused on drug enforcement," Goldberg said. "It's a waste of money and ruins people's lives for small infractions, so I'd rather see it legal and have people focus on more important things."

What Are Republicans Saying?

Paul Rose is a Democrat, but he is frustrated with the direction of the party. That's why he voted for Cox in the governor's race and Haire in the county executive election.

"I'm a registered Democrat, but I am not a fan of the Democratic Party right now," Rose said after voting at Arundel High School in Gambrills. "I think we have better opportunities and more concern about our citizens through the Republican Party than we would with the Democratic Party right now."

Rose, who served in the Marine Corps, voted against legalizing recreational marijuana.

"I've seen the effects of what it's done to a lot of people in my life, so I'm not for it at all," Rose said.

The 81-year-old thinks smoking weed can form bad habits and lead to more dangerous drugs.

Rose supports the state's already-legal medical marijuana program, but he worries that recreational use could send Marylanders down the wrong path.

"Legalization through a doctor's prescription, I have no problem with that at all," Rose said. "It's controlled that way."

What's Going On With Term Limits?

Jason Putnam, a voter heading to the Odenton Regional Library, was most concerned with the county's ballot question on term limits.

Currently, County Council members can only serve two terms of four years each. A ballot question seeks to extend that limit to three terms of four years each. That would keep county officials in office for longer, and it would guarantee them a pension if they serve three full terms.

The referendum says "Provide that no person elected or appointed to the office of County Councilmember may serve more than three full consecutive four-year terms."

Putnam thinks that makes it sound like there's not already a term limit, which isn't the case. He worries that this wording could mislead residents who support term limits to vote in favor of this ballot question, even though the referendum would really let council members stay in office longer.

"They're asking 'Are you in favor of a three-term term limit,'" Putnam said. "That's all they put on there, which to me implies that there's no term limit. And yeah, of course if I want a term limit, of course I want this. But if you look it up, there's actually a current two-term limit in place."

Putnam voted against the ballot question to ease term limits.

"I think we need two-term limits," Putnam said. "I think you get these networks of people that get too many connections, too many arrangements. You need to clean that out and get some fresh blood in there."

The Republican also voted for Cox and Haire, but he is tired of the two-party system. He believes this pushes candidates to the extremes when most Americans are fairly moderate.

"Most of us, I think, are pretty middle-of-the-road people," Putnam said. "The parties have become sort of self-aware and they're driving themselves to the lunatic fringes. You can either vote for bad or oh my god that's much worse, right? Like, I can't remember the last election where they had a good candidate that I could believe in."

What's Going On In The County Executive's Race?

The county executive's race is the most followed contest.

Democratic incumbent Steuart Pittman faced Republican challenger Jessica Haire, who is serving her first term representing south county as the District 7 council member.

Pittman led Haire by 8 percentage points heading into the election, a poll from The Capital suggested. More details on the poll are posted at the bottom of this section.

Pittman, a former farmer and horse trainer, bills himself as an environmentalist who has kept taxes at a lower rate than comparable Maryland counties. The Davidsonville native is endorsed by the county teacher, police and firefighter unions.

Haire, an engineer and an attorney, pitches herself as a fiscal conservative who wants to trim governmental waste. The Edgewater resident is endorsed by the Anne Arundel County Association of Realtors. Haire has also worked closely with Campaign Chairman Nic Kipke, a Republican representing the Pasadena area in the House of Delegates.

Pittman took office in 2018 after thwarting the re-election bid of then County Executive Steve Schuh.

Some of Pittman's proudest accomplishments include:

• Delivering a tax cut this year on the first $50,000 of taxable income.
• Having the 7th-lowest property taxes of Maryland's 24 jurisdictions, which is the best rate in this region of the state.
• Earning the county's first triple-A bond rating from Moody's, a credit rating company.
• Starting to convert the county's fleet to electric vehicles.
• Funding the construction of a new 911 call center and a new police firing range.

Pittman also orchestrated $5,000 signing and retention bonuses for school bus drivers to combat the ongoing shortage. That has not solved the issue completely. Families still have to check if their routes have a driver each day, leaving many students without rides to school.

Haire thinks this unreliable school transportation is one of the biggest dings against Pittman's administration. She recently posted a Capital Gazette article on Facebook that said students have missed a combined 3,100 days of school because of bus issues.

"We can't even get our kids to school," Haire said at an October debate with Pittman. "We can do better than this. Together, we can change this trajectory."

Related: Analyzing Pittman Vs. Haire After Anne Arundel County Executive Debate

Pittman has frequently called out Haire for voting against this year's bipartisan budget, which included raises for all Anne Arundel County Public Schools teachers and staff.

Haire challenged Pittman's savings plan for the county. She highlighted Pittman's $110.8 million deposit this year into the county's rainy day fund. Rather than save that budget surplus, Haire would've rather had a larger tax cut.

Pittman has accused Haire of accepting $250,000 in campaign contributions from donors related to a company seeking to build a rubble landfill in a quiet Odenton community.

Pittman and Haire both said they oppose the landfill.

Haire also said a public information review found that she did not have any documents about the landfill in her county computer, phone, email or office files.

The landfill plans are currently on hold. The County Council, including Haire, voted unanimously to buy the land that developers needed to access the proposed landfill site. The county is now building an elementary school on that plot.

Pittman and Haire also disagree on development strategies.

Pittman wants to build higher-density projects at town centers in Annapolis, Glen Burnie and Odenton. He thinks this would create more affordable housing near transportation hubs.

"We cannot all afford a half an acre lot and a $700,000 house," Pittman said at the debate. "If we are going to support our community and move forward, we've got to say we're going to support smart growth."

Haire is against those large developments in already-crowded areas. She believes these projects would increase traffic.

A few weeks before Election Day, The Capital poll projected that Pittman held 48 percent of the vote to Haire's 40 percent.

OpinionWorks, an Annapolis survey company, polled 439 likely Anne Arundel County voters from Oct. 20 through Oct. 25. The interviews were conducted by telephone and the internet.

The poll had a margin of error of +/- 4.8 percentage points. That means there is a 95% chance that the actual portion of residents who share those beliefs falls within 4.8 percentage points in either direction of the values listed in the survey.

More information on the poll is outlined in The Capital's full story, which is only available to subscribers of The Capital and The Baltimore Sun.

Pittman's projected lead represented a comeback. A September poll from Anne Arundel Community College had Haire with 33% of the vote to Pittman's 31% with another 36% of respondents undecided at that point.

The Anne Arundel Community College poll had a margin of error of +/- 4.5 percentage points. It surveyed 468 random county adults from Sept. 23 through Oct. 1. Interviews were conducted online.

Be sure to read Patch's county executive debate coverage.

To learn more about Pittman, visit PittmanForPeople.com. Additional details on Haire are available at JessicaHaire.com.

Related:

• Anne Arundel County Executive Debate: Analyzing Pittman Vs. Haire
• Pittman's Takes On A Newly-Friendly McMillan
• Pittman Debuts Campaign Ad With Moore
• Anne Arundel Poll Shows Haire With Narrow — But Potentially Fragile — Lead Over Pittman

When Will The Results Be Certified?

Media outlets may project winners based on large leads, but election officials will not certify the final results for at least nine days. Officials must wait for every mail-in and provisional ballot to trickle in.

All of Maryland's 24 jurisdictions reported their early voting and Election Day tallies on Tuesday night, but only 10 started tabulating the mail-in ballots that they already received.

The Maryland Court of Appeals on Oct. 7 ruled that local election offices could opt to start counting mail-in ballots before Election Day. They couldn't release these results until after polls closed on Election Day, however.

These jurisdictions planned to conduct pre-Election Day canvassing of mail-in ballots: Baltimore City and Allegany, Baltimore, Calvert, Frederick, Howard, Montgomery, Prince George's, Saint Mary's and Washington counties.

Fourteen jurisdictions did not have the space or personnel to count early mail-in ballots as they arrived.

These counties will start canvassing their mail-in ballots on Thursday, which is two days after Election Day: Anne Arundel, Caroline, Carroll, Cecil, Charles, Dorchester, Garrett, Harford, Kent, Queen Anne's, Somerset, Talbot, Wicomico and Worcester counties.

"We appreciate the diligence of the local boards in assessing the most appropriate canvassing approach for their individual teams and always placing the integrity of the election process above all else to ensure the will of Maryland voters is heard through their votes," Maryland State Board of Elections Administrator Linda H. Lamone said in a press release.

Election officials will tally provisional ballots on Nov. 16.

Every jurisdiction must continue accepting mail-in ballots postmarked by Tuesday until the statewide deadline of Nov. 18 at 10 a.m.

Local boards cannot certify their final results before Nov. 18.

Related: Maryland's Highest Court Upholds Order Allowing Early Counting Of Mail-In Ballots