Maryland House Bill Amended, Ready for Final Floor Vote to Move Presidential Primary to Late April

This past week, the Maryland state House Ways and Means Committee amended and passed its version of the legislation to shift back the presidential primary in the Old Line state to accommodate early voting and religious holidays.

Now, like the Senate-passed version, HB 396 would move the Maryland presidential primary from the first Tuesday in April to the fourth Tuesday in April. The Ways and Means Committee passed the move 21-1 on Wednesday, March 11. The bill survived its first floor consideration and second reading there with no further amendments.

Initially, both the state Senate and House versions pushed the Maryland primary back just a week, but the identical bills would now bump that back even further, bringing the election in line with similar contests in neighboring Delaware and Pennsylvania as well as Connecticut and Rhode Island at the end of April.

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