Mayor Sheila Dixon had a long wait at her polling place yesterday, but not as long as it could have been.
At 10:45 a.m., Dixon arrived at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School, The Baltimore Sun's Annie Linskey reports. The line snaked outside the building and halfway around the block, but a member of Dixon's staff, Antonio Hayes, had been there for an hour already holding a place for her in line. He said that he's held a place for her in the past, but she's declined to take the spot. This time, she took it. Even so, there were hundreds in front of the mayor. She waited. And waited, taking a call from her daughter.
When she got inside, she noticed that the line went to the end of the hallway and doubled back.
Around 11:30 Paulita Sheridan, a volunteer poll worker, offered to let the mayor cut in line. Dixon declined, quipping that such a move would merit a headline in The Baltimore Sun.
But the line slowed. And by 12:08 she hadn't moved forward much and had grown impatient looking at the scheduled events she was missing.
"I'm getting ready to take you up on that offer," she said when Sheridan walked by. Others in line behind her urged her forward, impressed that she'd waited so long.
So at 12:10 the mayor skipped to the head of the line, probably shaving 30 minutes off her wait, and voted.
Smell the coffee
"Vote Today!!" Cafe Bluehouse urged customers in an e-mail, "Then come by our Harbor East location, tell us you voted, and get 10% off of your coffee beverage at cafe bluehouse. Maryland has ten electoral votes, so that number just seemed to make sense."
Was that discount joe patriotic or illegal? The cafe staff thought the former. Then they heard a bit on NPR, which raised questions about similar offers from Starbucks and Ben and Jerry's.
That sent Bluehouse general manager Amy Laperle scrambling to look up Maryland election law. "You can't give incentive for people to vote," she learned. "We doubt we would get in trouble for that, but it's always good to keep on the right side of things."
So out went another e-mail.
"Sorry to bother you again, but OOPS! Apparently it's against the law for a business to encourage someone to vote - for anyone they like - with a promotion such as ours. Our revised offer is that anyone can just walk in off the street and ask for 10% off our coffee today for no reason, even if they have chosen not to do their patriotic duty and participate in our democracy."
