1. A. Obtaining Replacement.

   1. (1) Except as provided in §A(2) of this regulation, a voter who makes an error or otherwise spoils a ballot may return the ballot to an election judge and obtain another ballot.
   2. (2) A voter may not be issued more than two replacement ballots.

2. B. Obscuring Prior Votes. Before the election judge accepts a spoiled ballot, the election judge shall instruct the voter to:

   1. (1) If the voter manually marked one or more contests on the spoiled ballot, mark all of the voting positions in those contests to obscure the voter’s selections; and
   2. (2) If the voter used the ballot marking device to make selections, use a black marker provided by an election judge to obscure the barcodes printed on the ballot.
3. C. Spoiled Ballot Envelope. An election judge shall place all spoiled ballots in the spoiled ballot envelope.

Authority: Election Law Article, §§2-102(b)(4), 2-202(b), 9-102, 9-105, and 11-201, and Title 9, Subtitle 2, Annotated Code of Maryland

Effective date:

Regulations .01—.07 and Regulations .09—.29 adopted effective April 11, 2016 (43:7 Md. R. 452)

Regulation .17F amended effective February 10, 2020 (47:3 Md. R. 173)

Regulation .18 amended effective July 10, 2023 (50:13 Md. R. 514)

Regulation .30 adopted effective September 29, 2025 (52:19 Md. R. 957)