Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has responded to reports that a group aligned with Republican nominee for governor Dan Cox is ready to challenge the legitimacy of the state’s election.
A group called the Maryland Voter Integrity Group is working on a plan to hand recount paper ballots following the November election, which may not be allowed. That group is aligned with Cox, who has questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and has been evasive when asked if he’ll accept the results of the 2022 election in Maryland.
Hogan was dismissive of the whole idea and clearly didn’t want to spend much time on the issue when reporters asked him about it at a press conference Friday.
“Obviously I don’t think that makes any sense,” said Hogan, after making clear it was something he had little interest in dwelling on. “I think they’re still questioning the 2020 election. Biden won Maryland by 33 points and more than a million votes.”
“I can’t speak for Dan Cox or what he might do after the election,” he added.
Hogan said he has no concerns about how the state conducts elections and expects to reiterate his confidence in the election process in the future.
“I think the last election we conducted was probably better than any state in the country,” he said. “We had no issues or problems whatsoever and had our votes all tabulated. We’re going to continue to make sure people have confidence in our election system.”
Polling has shown Cox to be behind Democrat Wes Moore by roughly the same margin that President Biden beat Trump by in Maryland in 2020. To conduct a recount, a candidate has to wait until the election is certified weeks after Election Day, and even then only if the margin between the top two candidates is less than 5% of the votes cast between the two.
