The Baltimore City Board of Elections overspent its budget by $1.4 million during last year’s presidential election, most on a new early voting site that saw relatively little use.

The overage, about one-fifth of the board’s overall budget, came after election officials opted to increase the number of early voting centers in the city from seven to eight.

Baltimore has had seven or fewer early voting centers for all but one election since early voting was first introduced in Maryland more than a decade ago. State law requires the city, which has about 400,000 eligible registered voters, to have at least seven sites, but additional sites can be added.

State Sen. Antonio Hayes, a Democrat from West Baltimore, lobbied for the additional location, appearing before the Board of Elections in November 2023 to make his case, according to board minutes. The new site was opened at Baltimore City Community College, a West Baltimore campus on Liberty Heights Avenue.

Baltimore already has several early voting sites that serve West and Northwest Baltimore, including Westside Skill Center on Edmondson Avenue, the Public Safety Training Facility on Northern Parkway and James McHenry Recreation Center in Hollins Market.

Hayes argued the Hollins Market site was largely attracting voters from state legislative District 46, despite being located in District 40, according to board minutes. Hayes, who represents District 40, said he heard “consistently from constituents that Baltimore City needs an early voting location in heart of West Baltimore.”

In an interview with The Baltimore Banner, Hayes acknowledged that other sites existed in West Baltimore but argued BCCC has greater access to public transit and more available parking.

“It was a great deal of people who voted there,” Hayes said.

Data from the Maryland State Board of Elections, however, shows the new voting location at BCCC was among the least used in the city during last year’s busy presidential election. About 53,500 city voters took advantage of early voting in November, just 3,752 of them at the community college location. The site ranked sixth among the eight sites for turnout.

Use was even worse during the primary. The location saw the second-fewest voters of the eight sites, trailing only a remote South Baltimore location.

Early voting has seen dwindling use in Baltimore since the widespread use of mail-in ballots was introduced during the pandemic. Baltimore City and Montgomery County were the only jurisdictions where more voters cast ballots by mail than they did at early voting centers in 2024.

Early voting centers must be staffed with multiple election judges and must remain open for the eight-day early voting period. City finance officials said 80% of the board’s $1.4 million budget overage was a result of the early voting expansion. The city election board’s budget for fiscal year 2024 was $7.8 million.

Abigail Goldman, acting election director for the city, said the new early voting site was recommended by “elected officials,” refusing to identify Hayes.

“They said there was no option in that area,” she said, “even though we had one at Public Safety and Westside.”

Goldman said it will be up to the city’s election board to decide if the site will remain in 2026, but she said she will advise the group to close it if asked.

Hayes said the election board should have budgeted for an additional location since it is permitted under state law and said he will advocate to keep the site for the 2026 election. If the city needs to close a location, it should be the site in Hollins Market that has also seen low turnout, Hayes said. The Hollins Market site had more voters than the BCCC site in the primary, but fewer voters in the general.

“If it was my decision, I would not want to limit access to voting at all,” he said. “But if we had to make that decision, I would much rather have the one in the heart of West Baltimore.”

The remaining 20% of the office’s $1.4 million deficit was due to unbudgeted security expenses, Goldman said. Baltimore initially used unarmed private security guards to monitor ballot drop boxes, which were first introduced across Maryland in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic. After a guard was shot and another was the victim of a carjacking, the elections office switched to video security for subsequent elections, Goldman said.

The additional cost for cameras was not included in the city’s budget that closed out June 30, however it has been included in future budgets, she said.

Baltimore leaders approved a transfer of surplus income tax revenue to cover the overage.