BERLIN – The two most closely contested races in this year’s Mid-term Election appear as if they’ll remain so with more than 1,000 potential District 38 State Senate votes outstanding because of provisional, second round absentee, and military votes.

District 38 covers Worcester,

Somerset and Wicomico counties. The number of outstanding votes is fluid because many of the absentee and military ballots that were sent may not be returned.

A federal suit found that Maryland had mailed some absentee ballots out beyond the 45 day pre-election deadline and extended the absentee due date for the late mailings to Nov. 12. In

Worcester
County alone 120 have already been returned and more returns are likely. The

county
Board of Elections put the potential outstanding votes at 507 with nearly 250 returned as of Tuesday.

With that many possible votes outstanding, the

Worcester
County
State’s Attorney’s race could well come down to the second-round absentee and military ballots, which are not due to the Worcester County Board of Elections until Nov. 12 and Nov. 22 respectively.

The board was scheduled to evaluate more than 130 provisional ballots yesterday and will count the 120-plus absentee ballots they have in their possession by close of business tomorrow. As of Tuesday only 107 votes separated incumbent Joel Todd from challenger Beau Oglesby.

The State Senate race will also likely remain close as Del. Jim Mathias maintains a 439 vote lead over his opponent,

Ocean
City businessman Michael James, as of Tuesday. Although the difference in both races is likely to be greater than the .1 percent needed to trigger an automatic recount, it’s still unlikely there will be a definitive winner in either race before next week.