What a Concession Does in Maryland: Nothing
I have wondered about this for years, and this week I finally got tired of wondering. On Saturday morning, Bill Folden conceded the District 4 Senate race, and the counting did not stop. Up in Baltimore County, Shawn McIntosh has not conceded the council race he is losing to Nino Mangione, and the counting has not stopped there either. So what does a concession actually do in Maryland? The answer is: nothing.
Start with what happened on Election Day, because that is where the confusion starts. When the television said 100 percent of precincts reporting on Tuesday night, that meant every polling place had sent in its count. It did not mean every ballot had been counted. In Harford County, Douglas Phillips went to bed on Tuesday night ahead by 352 votes in the District E council race. By Friday night, Hunter Baker led him by 307, because the mail-in ballots broke better than two to one for Baker. The precincts were all in. The ballots were not.
