The Kensington man who unsuccessfully challenged Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D) in last fall’s election will go before the Montgomery County Board of Elections on Monday and ask it that it implement further security measures for voting machines, software and operating policies.
Ken Timmerman, a Republican who lost to Van Hollen in Montgomery precincts of Maryland’s Eighth District by a 3-to-1 margin, backed off his original claim that the county’s voting results were inaccurate. He said he “conducted an investigation with the help of volunteers” and “came away from that investigation convinced that the anecdotal reports we had gathered did not rise to the level of a systematic pattern of voter fraud.”
Before, Timmerman had claimed supporters supplied him with anecdotal evidence of “irregularities” during early voting and the Nov. 6 general election. He also claimed there were voting machines in the district without a single Republican vote.
“However, as I learned more about the electronic voting machines and their vulnerabilities, I also became convinced that the security measures in place – especially in Montgomery County – were inadequate,” Timmerman wrote in an email to supporters. “While I do not doubt the good intentions of the professional staff who administer our elections, I believe the politicians who give them orders and set the security parameters can do better.”
Timmerman will address the Board of Elections at its meeting on Monday at 2:30 p.m. and make two unspecified recommendations he hopes they will adopt. In November, he said the state must enforce a 2007 law that established the replacement of touch-screen machines with optical scanner voting machines.
“If they fail to enact these common sense reforms or equivalent measures, I will have no choice but to tell the public that I have no confidence in the outcome of the 2014 election results in Montgomery County,” Timmerman wrote.
