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The state House of Delegates candidate accused last week of plagiarizing a Baltimore City politician’s platform appears to have lifted some of her Baltimore Sun voter guide responses from the platform of a third candidate seeking to represent a neighboring district in Annapolis.
The guide is meant to help voters understand candidates’ positions and distinguish one from another.
But whole paragraphs of candidate Aisha Khan’s responses to the Sun’s questions on inflation, transportation, schools, police, voting and climate change match the responses Baltimore County candidate Ruben Amaya submitted to The Sun and the League of Women Voters of Maryland.
Reached by phone Monday, Amaya said his campaign team notified him about the possible plagiarism yesterday. He is running Tuesday in a crowded primary and vying to become the first Latino to represent Baltimore County and the youngest state lawmaker in Maryland history.
“My platform is very popular with the electorate. It’s what our community deserves,” said Amaya, 21, an at-large member of the Baltimore County Democratic State Central Committee. “I understand why someone would want to emulate the platform, but they need to say it in their own words.”
Asked if she copied another candidate’s voter guide responses, Khan, 38, said in a text Monday, “My team and I never had any intention of copying any other candidate.” Khan owns and operates a daycare and serves on the Democratic committee with Amaya. She also repeated what she said last week — that state Delegate Dalya Attar’s platform appeared on her campaign website as her own because her website had been “compromised.”
Still, the similarities between Khan’s Sun voter guide responses, Amaya’s Sun voter guide responses, and Amaya’s League of Women Voters of Maryland voter guide responses are indisputable.
“We can revitalize our economy and tackle inequity,” Amaya told the League. “We can create hundreds of thousands of good-paying union jobs; we can replenish marine life populations to stimulate our fishing industries; we can better support local farmers within the community; we can plant millions of trees and build green spaces and community gardens.”
“We can revitalize our economy and tackle inequity,” Khan told the Sun. “We can create hundreds of thousands of good-paying union jobs; we can replenish marine life populations to stimulate our fishing industries; we can better support local farmers within the community; we can plant millions of trees and build green spaces and community gardens.”
A shorter version of this position also appeared in Amaya’s responses to the Sun.
How this latest instance of apparent plagiarism occurred is less clear.
The responses Khan and Amaya submitted to the Sun both published in mid-May. The League published its voter guide a few weeks later in early June.
Nikki Tyree, executive director of the League, called the appearance of a candidate’s questionnaire responses in a different organization’s voter guide under another candidate’s name “really unusual.”
”People on my team have been doing this work for a long time, and no one has ever heard of anything like this,” Tyree said. Representatives from the Sun could not be reached for comment.
Amaya noted that he has filled out other questionnaires about his platform before and often submits similar language.
Last week, The Banner reported that biographical information and descriptions of priorities published on Khan’s campaign website appeared to be lifted word-for-word from the campaign website of state Delegate Dalya Attar, who represents a Baltimore City district adjacent to the one Khan is vying to represent.
Khan’s website not only described Attar’s background and platform on education, safety, quality of life and the opioid epidemic as her own, it also mistakenly featured a promise to advocate for District 41, Attar’s district, not District 44B, where Khan is a candidate.
In a text message Friday, Khan said that a “suspicious character” had changed the site.
“Website content was changed without my team knowledge & permission. They are working to resolve the issue,” she wrote. “I think it’s a setup but as of today my team is working to resolve any issues. I have replaced my social media team with new volunteers to avoid any issues.”
Khan did not respond to follow-up questions about how the site was changed. The language had been on the site since at least Dec. 24, 2021, according to The Wayback Machine internet archive.
Khan’s site was updated Friday afternoon. The duplicated text was gone and the only thing that remained was a new message: “WE WILL BE BACK SHORTLY!”
jessica.calefati@thebaltimorebanner.com
Read more
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Jessica Calefati is an education enterprise reporter exploring how Johns Hopkins University is shaping Baltimore’s future.
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