Armstead Jones, Baltimore’s longtime and increasingly embattled election director, announced his retirement Friday after nearly two decades on the job.

Jones, 71, had been on leave since early this year, leaving deputy Abigail Goldman at the helm of the office. The absence was one of several Jones has taken in the last few years as his health has deteriorated. He was on leave during the preparations for the 2024 presidential primary in which the city’s mayoral race was decided, and he was hospitalized during the 2022 gubernatorial election.

State election officials announced Jones’ retirement Friday. He will leave the position effective May 1.

In a news release from the Maryland State Board of Elections, Jones said it was an honor to serve in the election director position.

“I’m deeply grateful to the people of this city for trusting me to protect their voice and help shape a more accessible, transparent, and fair democratic process,” he said.

He could not be reached for further comment.

Jones, a Republican who formerly chaired the city’s election board, strong-armed his way into the position after a clash with Gene Raynor, the politically connected elections staff member who was named to the post over him. Raynor, an ally of former Mayor William Donald Schaefer, became director in early 2006 but resigned in September of that year following a heated public meeting in which the City Council grilled him about problems with that year’s election.

The Baltimore Sun reported at the time that Raynor blamed the election board, not the City Council for his departure. He said Jones turned election staff against him in retaliation for not getting the job, and the board, under Jones’ direction, never gave him proper authority to supervise the election.

Known for his colorful outfits, Jones had an even more colorful way with words, delivering seemingly casual responses to alarming situations. In 2022, Baltimore’s election results from about a dozen jurisdictions were delayed after flash drives containing results went missing. Jones called the issue “nothing unusual.”

In 2020, as the state made a shift to voting by mail amid a closely contested mayoral race, Baltimore’s results were delayed by a coding problem with a City Council race. As days wore on, Jones told a Baltimore Sun reporter he couldn’t say for sure how many ballots remained to be counted.

“The lady that can look it up is gone. I don’t do that MD Voters stuff,” he said, referring to a database.

As election officials tallied votes in last year’s primary, totals in several close City Council races mysteriously dropped, an issue that was eventually attributed to “human error” and ballots being mistakenly counted twice. Jones admitted some missing flash drives were found, but of the reduced vote totals said that “nobody should have lost anything.”

Minutes from recent meetings of the city board of elections show members have expressed concern about Jones’ extended leaves of absence from the director position. Member Sam Novey said he expected to see timesheets reflecting all sick days, and board Vice President Terrence Thrweatt said senior staff in the office should be “recognized and compensated appropriately if they are de facto running the office for an extended period of time.”

On Friday, however, the board expressed gratitude to Jones.

“His contributions to the growth, knowledge and development of this staff and new board members will sustain many of us as we move forward in this process,” Scherod Barnes, president of the Baltimore City Board of Elections, said in a news release.

State officials said recruitment efforts for a new director will begin later this month. Jones was paid $149,000 in 2024, state records show. The city’s board will appoint a replacement, but must confer with the state administrator, according to state election law.