A one-precinct ballot glitch, a fifth-place finish, and no named voters — inside the long-shot lawsuit trying to undo Maryland’s certified primary.
By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
Hasan M. “Jay” Jalisi wants a second shot at the House of Delegates, and he’s asking a judge to give it to him by tearing up a certified primary result.
The former District 10 delegate, who served from 2015 to 2023, filed a three-page lawsuit July 28 in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court against the State Board of Elections and State Administrator of Elections Jared DeMarinis. Jalisi, representing himself, is asking the court to stay the results of the June primary and order a new Democratic primary in District 10 — more than a month after voters went to the polls, and about a week after state officials certified the race.
His claim: his name was missing from the early-voting ballot at one Randallstown precinct, 2-016, which votes at Randallstown High School. Jalisi says voters told him they couldn’t find him on the “computer ballot,” that he flagged the problem to election officials, and that nothing was done. “The Maryland State Board of Elections took no corrective action and, to date, have taken no steps to certify or confirm” he was on the ballot for all of early voting, he wrote in the filing.
Jalisi finished fifth of six candidates in the three-seat primary — 3,573 votes behind third-place finisher N. Scott Phillips. He argues that but for the alleged omission, he “would have been a top-three finisher.”
The evidentiary gap
A one-precinct ballot problem would be serious. The harder question is whether it could plausibly account for thousands of votes.
That’s a big claim resting on thin paper. Jalisi’s lawsuit does not name a single voter who says they were unable to vote for him because of the error, and it includes no affidavits. In a race decided by thousands of votes, a court asked to void a certified election and order a costly do-over will typically want more than a candidate’s account of what voters “reported” to him — it will want evidence tying a specific, quantifiable number of ballots to the alleged defect, and some basis for concluding that defect could plausibly have closed a multi-thousand-vote gap.
Jalisi finished 3,573 votes behind third place. His lawsuit identifies no affected voters and includes no affidavits.
DeMarinis declined to comment on the suit. Jalisi wasn’t immediately available.
The context the lawsuit doesn’t mention
The lawsuit asks the court to judge a ballot problem. Jalisi’s political history explains why the broader campaign was considerably more complicated.
Jalisi’s House career ended in controversy that the filing doesn’t reference, but that shaped his 2026 campaign. He was publicly reprimanded by the full House in 2019 for what colleagues described as a pattern of bullying and a toxic office environment, and was ordered into anger management by then-Speaker Michael Busch — an order Jalisi didn’t comply with, resulting in a ban on hiring staff. He called the underlying ethics probe a “sham investigation.” Separately, early in his first term, his daughter obtained a yearlong protective order after telling a judge he had assaulted and stalked her during an argument, and Busch removed him from the Judiciary Committee as a result.
This cycle, Jalisi was also the target of roughly $352,000 in opposition mailers and ads from a PAC called American Future, which simultaneously spent to support the four candidates who ultimately won District 10’s primary and now run unopposed in November. American Future’s own funding traces back to $41 million from Win for America PAC, whose backers include gaming companies FanDuel and DraftKings, according to FEC records.
About $352,000 was spent opposing Jalisi while supporting the candidates who ultimately advanced.
What’s next
The general election ballot must be certified by Aug. 31, giving the court a tight window to act if it’s inclined to act at all. Barring an unusual ruling, District 10’s four Democratic nominees — Sen. Ben Brooks and Dels. Phillips and Jennifer White Holland, plus newcomer Robin Harvey — head into November unopposed regardless of how the suit is resolved, since Jalisi isn’t contesting the general, just the primary that produced them.
The gap is 3,573 votes, and the filing offers no voters, no numbers and no sworn statements to close it.
If a candidate really was dropped from ballots in a working precinct, that’s a legitimate administrative failure the state board should have to answer for on the record. But Maryland courts don’t set aside certified elections on the strength of an allegation alone — they weigh evidence against the size of the gap it would have to close. Here, that gap is 3,573 votes, and the filing offers no voters, no numbers, and no sworn statements to close it.
Sources: This report draws on Hasan M. “Jay” Jalisi’s July 28, 2026 lawsuit filed in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County against the Maryland State Board of Elections and State Administrator of Elections Jared DeMarinis; Maryland Matters’ Aug. 7, 2026 reporting on the filing; the Maryland State Board of Elections’ certified 2026 primary results for House of Delegates District 10 (elections.maryland.gov); the Maryland State Board of Elections’ official biography page for DeMarinis; the House of Delegates’ 2019 reprimand action against Jalisi as reported by Maryland Matters; and Federal Election Commission disclosures on American Future PAC and Win for America PAC.
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