ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND — Maryland’s Supreme Court kept statewide Question 3 on the November 2026 ballot and ordered new ballot text. The per curiam order in Nos. 21 and 22, September Term 2026, was argued and filed Sept. 3, 2026. Chief Justice Matthew J. Fader signed it. Justice Biran did not participate.

What the majority did. The Court affirmed in part and reversed in part the Anne Arundel and Dorchester circuit judgments that had enjoined the question. It held the circuit courts erred, at least in part, on Title VII Election Law timing and on the single-subject claim. It agreed the ballot language was misleading in one clause — the line that said the amendment “requires the criteria for boundaries of congressional districts to be determined by applicable federal laws” — and that the clause violates due process.

The remedy is not to pull the question. Under Election Law § 12-204(c), the Court ordered the State Board of Elections to replace that ballot text with the purpose paragraph of Chapter 881 of the 2026 Laws of Maryland. The replacement language, as ordered. The purpose paragraph submitted to voters is to read: “FOR the purpose of clarifying that certain requirements apply only to districts for the election of members of the Senate of Maryland and the House of Delegates; authorizing the General Assembly to grant original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court of Maryland to review the congressional districting plan of the State; and providing that nothing in the Maryland Constitution provides applicable criteria for the boundaries of a congressional districting plan.”

Deadline on the remand. The circuit courts were ordered to enter conforming summary-judgment orders by no later than Sept. 4, 2026. Costs in each case are split evenly. The mandate issues forthwith.

Who dissented. Justice Gould, joined by Senior Justice Harrell, would have affirmed both circuit injunctions. The dissent says it is skeptical that § 12-204 authorizes the Court to rewrite ballot language and argues the majority’s substituted text still fails to tell voters that Declaration of Rights guarantees would no longer supply criteria for a congressional plan.

Why Talbot readers care. The Talbot County Board of Elections is listed among the defendant-appellants in the order caption. Question 3 is the congressional redistricting constitutional amendment tied to Chapter 881 — the Shore’s 1st District map is the local stake, not a Baltimore headline.