Maryland Supreme Court Justice Brynja Booth questions attorneys during the court’s hearing Wednesday of Maryland State Board of Elections v. Anthony Ambridge. Screengrab from court video.
An attorney for voters trying to block a Baltimore referendum on redevelopment of the Inner Harbor faced stiff questioning Wednesday from several Maryland Supreme Court justices, who are trying to determine if the issue should go forward.
But the justices did not rule after the hourlong hearing, which came less than four weeks before Election Day and as thousands of mailed-out ballots with the question on them have already been returned by city voters.
Chief Justice Matthew Fader, writing in a motion in the case last week, said “it is the court’s intention to resolve … this case in an expeditious manner.” But Fader gave no indication of a timeline in that order or from the bench on Wednesday.
The seven-member court heard oral arguments for an hour Wednesday on the Maryland State Board of Elections’ appeal of a ruling by last month by Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Cathleen Vitale on Baltimore’s Question F.
Vitale’s order – which remains in place for now – bars city officials from counting any votes cast on Question F and the proposed redevelopment of Harborplace.
More than 60,000 city voters — some of whom are overseas — had been mailed ballots with the referendum question by the time of Vitale’s order. And those ballots are now being returned.
With printed ballots mailed to voters, Vitale could not order the question stricken last month. Instead, she ordered the city “not to certify the results” when the elections board begins its vote tallies.
The Supreme Court last week denied a motion by the state board of elections for an emergency stay of Vitale’s order.
Of the more than 63,000 mail-in ballots that have been sent to voters in Baltimore City, 18% have already been returned.
Attorney Thiru Vignarajah. File photo courtesy of Thiru Vignarajah.
Thiru Vignarajah, an attorney representing opponents of the ballot question, including former Baltimore City Councilmember Anthony Ambridge, rejected the idea that his client’s lawsuit was filed too late.
“I don’t think the fact that we brought it at a time when the General Assembly might have thought it was late … they (court challenges) are routinely brought in mid-September, early October,” he said.
But Fader pointed out that many of those challenges came at a time when the state’s primary election was in the fall rather than the spring and before federal laws set out tighter deadlines.
Vignarajah added that the language in the question was confusing and could not be fixed, making it legally insufficient to appear on a ballot.
“The lower court imposed the remedy of invalidation, because this language is so incoherent, and when the remedy is invalidation, that there is no language that can make this clear given the timetable,” he said.
Vignarajah faced stiff questioning from justices including Fader and Justice Brynja M. Booth.
Daniel Kobrin, an assistant attorney general assigned to the election board, asked the court to overturn Vitale’s ruling because opponents filed the challenge after ballots were printed.
Allowing the ruling to stand would create problems in the minds of voters who have received their ballots, he said.
Kobrin argued that “people are going to vote on it, and there are going to be voters on there who have no idea any of this is happening, and they’re going to wonder after the election, what’s going on? I voted on this. What happened with Harborplace?
“And that’s what I opened with — that erodes confidence in both the state board and the ballot,” he said. “And so, the timing of this lawsuit, regardless of what the outcome is, prejudices the state and the electorate.”