Damn You, Jared DeMarinis — You Broke the Public’s Trust
I never thought I’d write this.
For years, I defended the Maryland State Board of Elections.
For years, I defended its leadership.
For years, I defended Jared DeMarinis, the man now running the entire agency.
And now I sit here feeling like a fool.
Because in my opinion, the moment he took over, the Board of Elections turned around and stabbed the public — and people like me — right in the back.
I’m not a lobbyist.
I’m not a donor.
I’m not a political insider.
I’m just one of the little people who actually tries to follow the money and hold campaigns accountable.
And what did we get for it?
A campaign finance system that used to be simple, transparent, and accessible — quietly buried behind menus, redesigns, and digital dead ends. A system that once let any Marylander type in a committee name and instantly see the truth — now turned into a scavenger hunt designed to wear people down.
In my opinion, this wasn’t modernization.
This wasn’t improvement.
This wasn’t transparency.
This was a retreat from accountability.
And yes — I’m angry.
Because I supported this agency.
I supported the leadership.
I supported the idea that Maryland was better than this.
But now, in my view, the Board of Elections has chosen to make public information harder to find, harder to navigate, and harder to trust. And that choice — that deliberate burying of the public’s right to know — is despicable.
Marylanders deserve a system that serves the voters, not the politicians who approve the agency’s budget. They deserve a system that shines light, not one that hides the filings in a digital basement.
And if the leadership of the Board of Elections doesn’t understand that, then they’ve forgotten who they work for.
This is my opinion, and I stand by it:
The Board of Elections broke something that belonged to the people — and they should be ashamed of it.
I too was excited when Jared was promoted and was soon disappointed with his leadership. He took over during a period when too many people started losing confidence in our institutions. My confidence was based on his management of and my experience with the state’s campaign finance system.
It all started in 2021 when a group of concerned volunteer citizens purchased the publicly available Maryland Voter List and History files from the State Board of Elections (SBE) with the goal of working with the State and Local Board of Elections (LBEs) in a non-partisan manner to find, discuss, and address any apparent anomalies. Always to build a relationship and rebuild trust and never “prove fraud” as some have said. Our approach has been to never say, "our analysis is right and you need to blindly accept it". It has been to provide high quality data for the SBE and LBEs to focus their limited and precious time on.
The result after reporting our findings to the SBE was not working together to improve the overall process and confident, it was that the SBE voted to change the oath outlawing private entities from using voter rolls and history to investigate past elections. The end result was suing our own government to restore the original oath. Our team spent private money and the SBE spent taxpayer money to litigate in court. We ended up “winning” (if you consider suing your government “winning”) and the oath was restored.
That was just the beginning or our long journey to improve the overall process of maintaining our critical infrastructure and improving confidence in our election system. We have since worked with the Maryland House and Senate Legislatures testifying of new election laws and helping draft new election laws and building strong relationships with the 24 LBEs. The latest issue that in my opinion has no rhyme or reason is the SBE told the LBEs that they are forbidden from using data from third party independent sources, us. It only seems logical that the SBE and the LBEs would welcome the support given the size of the voter rolls and the limited staff that must also focus on many other important items.
We will never stop working to improve the state of our national infrastructure (Election Systems) and improve the citizen's confidence in our election system. We know there will always be groups who will attempt to demoralize our team and attempt to demonize our character. Our election and government institutions are too important to let them go unchecked and act like we work for them instead of providing a transparent and collaborative service they provide to all of us.
I haven’t had the occasion to interact with this board, but transparency and accountability in this state is a mixed bag, dependent on the body, agency, or cabinet culture.
I conducted an independent audit over 10 months which resulted in multiple referrals to OLA and through JAEC regarding one cabinet. All accepted.
For that effort, the cabinet attorney issued a PIACB complaint whose strategy was shoot the messenger. Their tactics included fee walls (198k), multiple ombudsman stays (document production evasion), and comments about scrutiny in a public commission session made their way into the complaint narrative as a retaliation “motive.” Transparency not in the culture of this cabinet, despite Wes Moore’s platform of transparency, and February passing of legislation that is essentially marching orders to every cabinet to clear their audit findings within 60 days. Moore is dragging a dumpster fire of many agencies whose practices have resulted in millions (some use billions) in waste, fraud, and abuse of tax payer dollars.
Fortunately, the agency and cabinet in question don’t seem to understand the role of PIACB. And their 350 pages of exhibits actually were counter productive to their complaint.
The truth will out.