Baltimore Election Results 2016: Pugh Sweeps Mayoral Race

BALTIMORE CITY, MD — After a contentious election season, Baltimore voters turned out in droves to the polls, encountering long lines that snaked around hallways and buildings in some precincts.

As ballots were still being tallied, Sen. Catherine Pugh was declared the city's next mayor Tuesday night by the Associated Press and the Baltimore Business Journal.

Pugh delivered a victory speech after 10 p.m. on Tuesday at the Inner Harbor's Radisson Hotel.

"Everybody knows you don't get to these positions by yourself," Pugh said, thanking her supporters, among them U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski; Reps. Elijah Cummings, John Sarbanes and Dutch Ruppersberger; and City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young.

"For me it's about building community — not just housing, not just shopping malls," Pugh said in an interview with ABC 2 News after 11 p.m. "We want to brighten our city...so that people can feel safe walking from one neighborhood to the other." Pugh added that she hopes to implement a more "community style of policing" to achieve that vision.

As of 10:55 p.m., there were 114,737 votes for Pugh; 45,220 for write-in candidates; 20,503 for Alan Walden; and 20,319 for Joshua Harris, according to unofficial data from the Baltimore City Board of Elections.

Write-in candidate Sheila Dixon told ABC 2 News that she was not prepared to concede as of 11 p.m.

See live results from the Baltimore City Board of Elections.

Voting places were open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday in the city, where early morning voters were greeted with long lines and changes in the voting process.

State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby tweeted a picture of her daughter at 8:25 a.m. inside a voting booth, causing a stir since cell phone use is forbidden there.

That was not the only violation of privacy encountered at the polls. Voting booths were smaller, and the act of voting required supervision as Maryland returned to paper ballots instead of electronic voting booths.

"There's no confidentiality," Amy Ingraham, 40, said of her experience casting a ballot at Fallstaff Middle School in Park Heights Tuesday morning around 11 a.m. "Your elbows touched" the person voting in the next booth, something she said she has not experienced since she began voting at age 18.

After voters filled out their ballots, election judges watched as each paper was fed into the scanner for processing.

"They had to look to make sure it was facing the right way," Ingraham said. "You can't tell me they can't see" how people voted.

One bright spot on Election Day was extemporaneous bursts of enthusiasm, she said: "Everybody was like, 'Yay,' and then they explained all first-time voters get a special cheer. It was cute."

While Ingraham voted "Democrat all the way down," she told Patch: "It's not even about who you vote for, it's about getting out to vote."

Baltimoreans made their picks for mayor and President, with Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump sharing the ballot with Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

See Also:

• Maryland Election Results 2016: Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump
• Maryland Senate Race: Democrat Chris Van Hollen Defeats Del. Kathy Szeliga
• Former Baltimore Mayor Files as Write-In Candidate for Mayoral Race
• Baltimore Primary 2016: Poll Problems, Pugh Accepts Challenge
• Baltimore Primary Results to be Decertified

Polling places: Find your polling place.

Paper ballots: Voters will use a pen to mark their selections on paper ballots, then put the ballots in a scanner for tabulation.

Ballot questions: From choosing a mayor to determining whether to expand the Inner Harbor Park, Baltimore citizens are asked to weigh in on a variety of issues. See the sample ballot below.

Statewide, Maryland residents are asked to vote on an amendment to the state constitution, which would change the way the governor fills a vacancy of the attorney general or the comptroller and requires a special election for vacancies that occur on or before a certain date. Under current law, the governor fills a vacancy by appointing someone to serve for the remainder of the term. Under the amended law, if the vacating attorney general or comptroller were members of a political party, the governor must fill the vacancy from a list of three names provided by the political party of the vacating official.

More information: See the Baltimore City Board of Elections and the Maryland Board of Elections websites for additional details.

See Also:

• How to Report Election Fraud, Voter Rights Abuses in Maryland
• Civil Rights Concerns Draw Many Maryland Black Voters to Polls

Photo of Sen. Catherine Pugh from Maryland State Archives. Patch graphic.