Local elections board officials express concern over former GOP member’s comments about voter fraud

A former Montgomery County Board of Elections president who is expected to be appointed by Gov. Wes Moore (D) to join the Maryland State Board of Elections said in a 2021 video interview that he could not confirm whether there was fraud in the 2020 presidential election in Montgomery County.

Jim Shalleck’s comments to the Maryland Voter Integrity Group have created a sense of unease  among some officials of the county elections board, who said this week when contacted about the video that they are “surprised and concerned” by his words.

In 2021, Shalleck, then a Republican candidate for Maryland attorney general, told the Maryland Voter Integrity Group in a video posted on Rumble that “if you ask me whether there was any fraud in Montgomery County, or any other jurisdiction in which this occurs, my answer is ‘I have no idea.’ And I was the president of the Board of Elections.”

According to its website, the Maryland Voter Integrity Group is “committed to stamping out fraud and inaccuracies in Maryland’s voter rolls to preserve voter confidence and free, fair and transparent elections.” The group has previously filed lawsuits against the Maryland Board of Elections challenging election results.

Right-wing conspiracy theories about election fraud have been a hallmark of former President Donald Trump’s election campaign and continue to be espoused by Republican leaders nationwide.

In a phone interview Tuesday with MoCo360, Shalleck said that while he didn’t recall exactly what he had said to the group, he emphasized that he never saw evidence of fraud in Montgomery County. He left the local elections board in 2021, before the video was recorded.

“My intention was to say, no, there was no fraud in the election that was detectable,” said Shalleck, 78, an attorney who lives in Montgomery Village. “I never saw any evidence of fraud in Montgomery County elections. … I definitely don’t want anyone to think I believe something conspiratorial was going on.”

When sent the video by MoCo360 and asked about the statements made in it, Montgomery County Board of Elections President David Naimon (D) and Secretary Amie Hoeber (R) said in an email statement Wednesday that they found Shalleck’s comments in the video to be concerning.

“We both like Jim but we’re surprised and concerned to see his 2021 video comments to the Maryland Voter Integrity Group. The Board in 2020 … unanimously voted to approve Jim’s motion to certify the general election results in Montgomery County,” the pair wrote. “No member of the Board at that time–Republican or Democrat–said anything at any Board meeting or canvass session in 2020 or since to suggest that there was a serious concern about voter fraud in Montgomery County in 2020. We remain unaware of any reason to question the validity of those results.”

Naimon and Hoeber noted they have never seen evidence of election fraud in Montgomery County.

“For Jim to say to the Maryland Voter Integrity Group that he had no idea if there was voter fraud in the 2020 election that he directed and certified is definitely cause for concern. He said ‘I have no idea’ and not ‘I didn’t see any.’ There’s a big difference, especially given the audience to whom he was speaking,” the pair wrote.

Shalleck was president of the county elections board for six years after he was appointed by then-Gov. Larry Hogan (R) in February 2015. The Maryland Republican Party submitted Shalleck’s nomination to Moore in March to fill a vacant seat on the state elections board, Maryland Matters first reported.

The state elections board is made up of five members who serve four-year terms and represent both principal political parties—three of the majority party in power and two of the minority party. The members are appointed by the governor, with the “advice and consent” of the state Senate, according to the board’s website.

The board oversees all elections in the state as well as individual county boards of elections, works to ensure compliance with election laws, and makes decisions about how elections are run in Maryland.

In the 2021 interview, Shalleck also said that as board president, he “suffered through that six years fighting extreme views and very liberal policies which I just thought affected our elections.”

When asked about this comment by MoCo360 on Tuesday, Shalleck didn’t point to a specific person or policy that made him feel this way.

“When I was board president I was criticized and attacked from both sides, the far right and the far left in terms of the administration of elections, but that comes with the territory, you know,” Shalleck said. “I’ve always put my head down and felt that [my job was] just kind of to make sure that the elections are fair and legitimate, so if you bring the evidence we’ll certainly investigate it.”

Additionally, Shalleck said in the 2021 interview he was concerned about the growing popularity of mail-in ballot voting and that he was disappointed that the procedure didn’t include signature verification.

On Tuesday, he told MoCo360 that while he doesn’t believe there is fraud occurring in local elections, he does think more could be done to protect election integrity.

“When you return the Maryland ballot, the election board has no authority to check on signatures. I can’t tell you how many signatures we got back where people signed with an X. So I’ve always been a proponent of a legislative fix so that there’s some kind of signature verification or other verification required when mailing ballots are received,” Shalleck said.

Naimon and Hoeber said in their email to MoCo360 that they were “troubled” by Shalleck saying in the 2021 video that his “biggest concern” with the 2020 election was the high turnout for early voting and mail-in balloting.

“The Board, our hard-working staff, and thousands of Montgomery County election officials worked very hard and put their own health at risk to give county voters a choice of how to vote in an important election during the pandemic before any COVID vaccines were available,” the pair wrote. “In the 2020 presidential general election, more than 128,000 voters voted early, more than 348,000 voted by mail-in ballot, and more than 40,000 voted on Election Day.”

But Shalleck also said this week it’s important to dispel the notion held by some voters that early voting is less secure than Election Day voting.

“People don’t have to like certain things, but that doesn’t mean there’s fraud,” Shalleck said. “I can understand people’s concerns, but a lot of people think that [early and mail-in voting is] automatically fraudulent and that’s not the case.”

Shalleck’s possible confirmation to the state elections board was delayed because Shalleck was running in the May 14 primary election to serve as a delegate for the Republican National Convention this summer. Under state law, a person actively running for elected office cannot be appointed to an elections board seat

Shalleck did not win a delegate seat, so he is eligible for the board. He said he would’ve supported former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley for U.S. president, who has since dropped out of the race and endorsed former Trump.

A spokesperson for Moore told Maryland Matters in March that they would revisit Shalleck’s nomination after the primary election. If Moore moves forward with Shalleck, the Maryland State Senate would have to approve the nomination.

A spokesperson for Moore told MoCo360 on Friday that the governor’s office had “no comment” on the video.

The Maryland GOP committee that nominated Shalleck did not respond to MoCo360’s request for comment.

The state elections board has been tasked with filling multiple unexpected vacancies this year. Diane Butler was appointed to the board upon the resignation of Carlos Ayala, who was charged with taking part in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.

In April, board member Janet Millenson, who lived in Potomac, died unexpectedly, leaving another vacancy.

Shalleck ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primaries for Montgomery County executive in 2014 and state attorney general in 2022.

He faced controversy during his tenure as president of the county elections board. In September 2015, Shalleck and his Republican colleagues on the elections board endured sharp criticism for a decision to replace 2016 early voting sites in Burtonsville and Chevy Chase with sites in Brookeville and Potomac. Public officials and community members voiced concern that the new sites were much less populous and more difficult for many county residents to access.

The Montgomery County Council later questioned elections board members about their decision at an October 2015 hearing, in which Shalleck said he was part of a phone call for the Republicans in the board majority to consult as a group with the Montgomery County GOP leaders.

In December 2015, the Maryland Open Meetings Compliance Board found that the elections board’s GOP majority, which included Shalleck, committed an open meeting violation by meeting privately with Montgomery County GOP leaders prior to the board’s action on the early voting sites, the Washington Post reported.

“That was a mistake that we made–that I made. I shouldn’t have moved those two sites because they were very popular and it was a mistake,” Shalleck said Tuesday.

Shalleck said if he is appointed to the state board, his philosophy will remain “very simple: listen to people’s concerns and complaints.”

“A lot of people are swayed by what they hear on the news, political dialogue. And not only is it difficult, but it rises to the point at times where it’s dangerous,” Shalleck said. “But the goal of the board of elections is to run the board the way it has to be run and listen to people’s critiques and deal with it. Unfortunately, a lot of critique is unwarranted and at times malicious and dangerous. But I have a thick skin.”