BALTIMORE — A political challenger is poised to oust a 33-year incumbent in the Baltimore sheriff’s race.
Democratic contender Sam Cogen has a narrow 188-vote lead over his competitor, Sheriff John Anderson.
Cogen received 6,138 votes during the early voting period and another 15,881 on primary day, according to a tally by the Maryland State Board of Elections.
In comparison, 6,224 people voted for Anderson during the early voting period and 15,607 people cast votes for him on primary day.
Cogen has promised to modernize what he describes as “an outdated Sheriff’s Office” so that it better serves the citizens of Baltimore.
He has a crime-reduction plan that hinges on tackling the difficulties associated with assigning only several deputies to serve warrants—some of them to violent offenders.
Anderson was appointed to the office by former Gov. William Donald Schaeffer in 1989. Prior to that, he was a deputy sheriff.
No one ran for city sheriff in the Republican primary.
Results from all of Baltimore City’s 296 precincts were not posted until Wednesday evening, after election judges misplaced 12 thumb drives with tallies from ballot scanners, delaying the release of the full vote count.
The state will begin counting mail-in ballots on Thursday. As of Tuesday, the state board of elections had received 213,019 ballots through the mail, including 21,813 from the city.