Gov. Wes Moore’s choices for the Anne Arundel County Board of Elections, including a disbarred Severna Park attorney, were seated and began meeting Thursday.
The board includes two new members, Ed Evans, a Democrat, and Jason Rheinstein, a Republican.
Rheinstein, 44, who worked with the county’s Republican Central Committee on multiple campaigns and as a poll watcher, was disbarred in 2020. The Maryland Court of Appeals unanimously agreed the attorney misrepresented facts and promoted conspiracies in a 2011 lawsuit against a private lending company.
In January, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the disbarment decision made by the U.S. District Court of Maryland after Rheinstein filed an appeal. Throughout the lawsuit the Severna Park attorney made unfounded accusations about the lending company his clients had worked with, suggested it had committed fraud without evidence, threatened the company’s attorneys and attempted to persuade the court the company and its staff were being investigated by the Department of Justice, according to the decision.
“As a young man, I have grown from that unfortunate experience and I look forward to having the opportunity to serve the community that I care about deeply as a member of the board,” Rheinstein told The Capital in a statement. Rheinstein works as a business consultant, according to LinkedIn.
The other new member, Evans, 68, was previously an election judge and canvasser. Evans is a retired U.S. Postal Service worker who later worked as a union official, arbitration advocate and labor relations specialist. He lives in Crownsville.
Trudy McFall, a Democrat, now serves as board president. Robert Atkins, a Republican, is vice president and Democrat Tryphena Ellis-Johnson is secretary. All three are returning members to the board.
The formerly majority Republican board now has a Democratic majority due to a statute that requires the county boards of election to be composed of a majority of members from the same party as the governor. Moore, a Democrat, was elected governor in November.
The board came under scrutiny last year for choosing to wait until after Election Day to count mail-in ballots from the 2022 midterm elections. That led to a race against the clock to finish counting by the state’s certification deadline.
The board’s president at the time, Brenda Yarema, a Republican, and Thomas R. Gardner, a Republican, did not return to the board when their terms expired this year.