Senators pause on Republican nominee
Would replace State Board of Elections member arrested for actions at capitol on Jan. 6
A Republican who has been active in Howard County elections is facing concerns from state senators considering whether she should fill a spot on Maryland’s top elections board that was vacated earlier this year when a GOP appointee was charged for attending the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Diane L. Butler, of Ellicott City, told the Senate Executive Nominations committee in a confirmation hearing Monday that she was nowhere near Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 — she was at home, cleaning her fish tank, she said.
She also believes, she said, that there has not been widespread fraud and that Maryland elections results have been accurate.
“Absolutely not,” Butler said when asked if she’d ever engaged in any activities that might be viewed as questioning the integrity of an election.
But her answers, as well as past public and private comments, have led some senators to pause. The committee decided to postpone a vote on her nomination as one of two minority party members to the five-member State Board of Elections.
“I still have some serious concerns about some of the actions and correspondence that’s been shared with me,” said Sen. Clarence Lam, an Anne Arundel County Democrat and vice chair of the nominations committee.
Butler faced heightened scrutiny after lawmakers vowed to step up their vetting efforts in the wake of former board member Carlos Ayala’s arrest in January.
Ayala, a former Perdue Farms executive from Salisbury, was charged with a civil disorder felony and related misdemeanors for his alleged role on the day when supporters of former Republican President Donald Trump tried to stop the certification of the 2020 election.
Investigators said Ayala climbed over police barriers with a flag depicting an M-16-style rifle and could be seen in a video waving the flag next to an exterior door of the U.S. Senate. A nearby door was breached by rioters less than 30 seconds later.
The charges shocked Democratic lawmakers who less than a year earlier had approved his position on the State Board of Elections. The volunteer position does not involve day-to-day election administration duties but makes decision on personnel, voting locations and some voting-related deadlines.
Ayala was one of two individuals recommended by the Maryland Republican Party who Democratic Gov. Wes Moore accepted in March 2023. The governor rejected one of the GOP’s other recommendations and another was approved by the governor’s office but rejected during confirmation.
Ayala, meanwhile, breezed by the vetting process. Between both the governor’s team and the Maryland Senate, that process typically includes background checks involving public records but no formal interviews and sometimes few questions from senators in confirmation hearings.
Legislators and others said it would have been difficult to unearth Ayala’s alleged involvement in Jan. 6 because of the secrecy around the then-active Department of Justice investigation. Still, Moore’s office said it would explore changes to the appointment process and lawmakers promised to step up their efforts to publicly question elections board nominees.
That more robust questioning played out in Monday’s hearing.
Butler, who served on the Howard County Board of Elections from 2015 to 2023, answered questions about her faith in mail-in ballots, internet-requested ballots, her overall faith in the results and her past public and private comments.
Though Butler said she’d never made a complaint to the State Board of Elections about election administration, Lam asked her about an email he said she sent to a state elections official in May 2021. Lam said the email raised concerns about the 2020 general election.
Butler responded that she had thought the chain of custody of ballots — where ballots are received, processed and then have the votes tallied by local election officials — was “kind of sloppy” and “weren’t being categorized as tightly as we in the past had done.”
“We had some issues with the elections there,” Butler said. “We’ve had so many changes so quickly. I think there are some places that we could improve.”
Lam also asked Butler about a Facebook post that he said she appeared to make some time during the pandemic. He said Butler commented on a post about CDC masking guidance by saying, “What’s next, Nazi armbands?”
Butler said she didn’t recall posting the comment but said, “It could have been mine.” She said there was a “tremendous amount of learning curves” about masking during the pandemic.
Lam, in an interview after the hearing, said he believed Butler attempted to answer the questions to “ameliorate some of our concerns” but that he still wanted to look into her background further. He said his office has received additional information but he declined to immediately provide those details.
Sen. Cheryl Kagan, a Montgomery County Democrat who is active in elections policy, said she hoped senators could take Butler’s comments “at face value and that she wasn’t misleading” after the “tragedy” of Ayala’s nomination.
“Diligent, thorough, protracted questioning is completely appropriate,” Kagan said.
Senate Minority Whip Justin Ready, a Carroll County Republican, introduced Butler during her hearing and said she had his full support.
“[Butler] brings a wealth and broad range of experience to her role,” Ready said.
Though the committee passed on voting on her Monday, the committee’s chair, Baltimore Democratic Sen. Antonio Hayes, said she could be considered for a vote at the next meeting on March 25.