Omar Lazo’s Lead Grows to 9,757 in School Board At-Large Race After Latest Mail Count

Omar Lazo’s lead over Brenda M. Diaz in the race for the at-large seat on the Montgomery County Board of Education grew to 9,757 votes Thursday night after another count of mail-in ballots, according to unofficial results from the State Board of Elections. The race has not been called.

What’s in it

• Totals: Lazo 151,056 (51.3%), Diaz 141,299 (48.0%), as of 9:40 p.m. Nov. 12
• Thursday’s count: Lazo gained 5,440 votes and Diaz 3,562, all from mail-in ballots
• The lead: up 1,878 votes, from 7,879 on Nov. 7
• Still out: late mail-in ballots due by 10 a.m. Friday, Nov. 13, and provisional ballots

What the count showed

Lazo won about 60% of the votes for the two candidates in Thursday’s mail-in count. Across all mail-in ballots counted so far, Lazo has 37,545 votes to Diaz’s 33,755. Provisional ballots are listed as not yet reported on the state’s results page.

Each mail-in count has favored Lazo more

The mail-in ballots reported on election night favored Diaz. Every mail-in count since then has favored Lazo, by a slightly larger share each time, according to the State Board of Elections results page at each update.

Mail-in count	Diaz	Lazo	Lazo share of two-candidate vote
Election night, Nov. 3	22,483	21,039	48.3%
Nov. 5	+3,632	+5,083	58.3%
Nov. 7	+4,078	+5,983	59.5%
Nov. 12	+3,562	+5,440	60.4%

For comparison, Lazo won 52.7% of the two-candidate vote in early voting and 50.6% on Election Day. Since the first mail-in report, Lazo has gained 5,234 more mail-in votes than Diaz.

What is still out

The state’s mail-in ballot report as of Nov. 11 shows 110,191 mail-in ballots received in Montgomery County. Based on the mail-in total in the governor’s race on the county results page, Moderately MOCO estimates about 20,850 received ballots were still uncounted after Thursday’s count, and about 80% of mail-in voters so far have voted in this race. More mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day can still arrive until 10 a.m. Friday, and provisional ballots are also still to be counted.

By that estimate, Diaz would need roughly two-thirds or more of the remaining votes in this race to pull even. The results stay unofficial until they are certified.

Read our candidate introductions for Omar Lazo and Brenda M. Diaz.

---