Ballot

The issue with baseball's annual Hall of Fame balloting usually is over whether certain players are more deserving than others. This year, the issue is whether we're looking at the greatest Hall class of all time.OK, OK, it's impossible for any class to top the original 1936 group, which included Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson and Walter Johnson. The standard was so high that year that Cy Young and his 511 pitching wins didn't get in. Yikes!The Baseball Writers' Association of America balloting for the Class of 1999, which concluded last night, won't produce that much star power.

PIEDMONT, Calif. -- When fellow Green Party members persuaded Audie Bock to run for the state Assembly last December, they told her she had a choice. She could run a symbolic campaign by putting her name on the ballot -- or she could campaign seriously."

TAKOMA PARK -- The most closely watched vote in this city tomorrow might be the one taken on the sidewalk outside the polling place on a simple paper ballot supervised by unofficials.Citizens Against Hand Guns says it will hold a mock election on a referendum to ban pistols and revolvers that was removed from the ballot last week by a Montgomery Circuit Court judge.Almost 2,500 of Takoma Park's 7,411 registered voters signed petitions this summer to put the handgun question on the ballot.

The issue with baseball's annual Hall of Fame balloting usually is over whether certain players are more deserving than others. This year, the issue is whether we're looking at the greatest Hall class of all time.OK, OK, it's impossible for any class to top the original 1936 group, which included Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson and Walter Johnson. The standard was so high that year that Cy Young and his 511 pitching wins didn't get in. Yikes!The Baseball Writers' Association of America balloting for the Class of 1999, which concluded last night, won't produce that much star power.

WASHINGTON -- With a week to go, polls show that voters in at least four states and Washington, D.C., are poised to allow marijuana to be used legally as a medicine -- ignoring the years-long and escalating opposition of the Clinton administration."

MIAMI -- In Puerto Rico, a television advertisement shows a young mother sitting in the sunny back yard of her Florida home, expounding the virtues of U.S. schools and the U.S. job market."

ClarificationA box Sunday omitted the name of a Democratic candidate for governor, Eileen M. Rehrmann. Though she has suspended her campaign, her name remains on the Sept. 15 ballot.Pub Date: 8/25/98

The Baltimore and state election boards now say they have time to remove Sen. Clarence W. Blount's name from voting machines before the Democratic primary.Blount lost a suit in court on Wednesday filed against him by Del. Frank D. Boston Jr., a candidate for Blount's Senate seat. An Anne Arundel County Circuit judge ruled that Blount did not live in West Baltimore's 41st Legislative District and should not be on the ballot for his Senate seat. Blount has appealed that ruling.The boards had originally argued in the case that Blount's name could not be removed from the ballot in time for the Sept.

The New York Times said in an editorial last week:So here we are again, edging toward Election Day with no firm idea of what the ballots in New York City will look like. In particular, the referendum section, often tucked down at the lumbago level of the ballot, is still very much in doubt. The cause for this confusion is a highly vocal and political battle between Council Speaker Peter Vallone and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.Vallone, who is running for governor, wants an item on the ballot that asks voters whether public funds can be used to move Yankee Stadium from the Bronx to Manhattan.

Members of the Baltimore Teachers Union head to the polls today to elect a president and other officers, one day after an appeals court rejected a former BTU president's attempt to stop the election.Former president Irene B. Dandridge, who claims she was improperly excluded as a candidate, said she isn't giving up her fight to reclaim the job she held for 17 years, despite yesterday's ruling."We do have some options," Dandridge said. "One is to go to the international union [American Federation of Teachers]

Selected comments on today's editorials from baltimoresun.com/secondopinion: GM bankruptcy This administration has proven there is NOTHING it is capable of doing without it being politically motivated. What makes anyone think they will start now? GM needed to go bankrupt months ago and - for political reasons - the Obama administration didn't allow that to happen. What's more political than getting in the middle of something like this and giving a company to a union? Frank I'm 30 years old, and I bought my first car when I was 14. I'm proud to say I've never bought American.

The Ellicott City Restoration Foundation Inc. is sponsoring a holiday window decorating contest for retail businesses in the Ellicott City historic district. A people's choice award will be chosen by ballot. Ballots for the people's choice award are available at the Howard County Tourism Visitor Information Center, 8267 Main St. Visitors will be able to vote by returning their ballots to the center on or before Dec. 31 at 3 p.m. The popular ballot winner will be announced Jan. 5, and a ribbon will be awarded.

With many people waiting in line for hours to cast their ballots, Marylanders voted overwhelmingly yesterday to change the way future elections are conducted by allowing polling places to open two weeks before Election Day. With more than half of precincts reporting, voters were approving Question 1 by a margin of more than 2 to 1, setting the stage for Maryland to join the 32 other states which allow early voting. Millions of Americans in those states cast their votes in the weeks leading up to Election Day. Specifically, the change approved to Maryland's constitution allows the General Assembly to enact an early-voting law. The Maryland Democratic party has pushed the idea for years, arguing that opening the polls sooner would afford more people an opportunity to participate in elections.

Maryland voters will flock to the polls today, lured by a momentous presidential election but also called to decide on slot-machine gambling and to settle one of the most competitive congressional races in the country. Expected record turnout could produce long lines at precincts, which might influence decisions on a proposed constitutional amendment to allow early voting in Maryland. Pages and pages of down-ballot bond issues could further cause voting delays. But long lines are not likely to stifle voter enthusiasm, said Linda Lamone, the state's elections administrator.

As much attention has been given the historic presidential race and, locally, statewide questions on early voting and slot machines, Marylanders will discover tomorrow that their ballots include a number of items that have attracted considerably less attention, from appellate court appointees to local bond issues that require voter approval. Baltimore County's ballot issues are typical of these choices. All but one are routine matters of borrowing money to finance parks, storm drainage, street repair, community college construction and rural land preservation, and voters should approve them.

Do you know where you are supposed to vote? The firehouse, the elementary school down the block, the neighborhood community center? This year, more than any other, where Marylanders vote is critical to having their vote count. That's because a recent Maryland Court of Appeals ruling has restricted the use of provisional ballots. In the past, a voter who showed up at the wrong polling place could fill out a provisional ballot and his or her votes for national or statewide were counted upon verification of registration.

Scott Arceneaux is a senior adviser to Marylanders United to Stop Slots, which opposes the ballot proposal. He is a veteran political strategist who managed several campaigns and was state Democratic Party executive director in his native Louisiana before moving to the Washington region in 2005 to lead the gubernatorial bid of former Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan. How is the campaign going? Has any aspect surprised you? Our side is passionate about the issue, and I think we are getting ready and fired up for Election Day. ... The fact that pro-slots advocates basically tried to game the system with the ballot language was not a big surprise.

Ballot questions forum to be held Oct. 14 A public forum on the two general election state ballot questions will be held at 9:45 a.m. Oct. 14 in the Howard County school system's Applications and Research Lab TV studio, 10920 Route 108, Ellicott City. The program will include an explanation of ballot question 1 - A Constitutional Amendment on Early Voting; Polling Places; Absentee Ballots - by Lu Pierson, president of the League of Women Voters of Maryland. State Sen. Allan Kittleman will speak against the amendment and state Sen. James L. Robey will speak for it, said Barbara Russell, communications director for the League of Women Voters of Howard County.

The language summarizing the slots referendum on the November ballot must "permit an average voter, in a meaningful manner, to exercise an intelligent choice." That's what Maryland's Court of Appeals ruled in a 1992 case regarding the referendum that preserved a woman's right to choose whether to have a child. Consequently, that's the legal standard that Maryland courts would apply to any challenge to Secretary of State John P. McDonough's wording of the referendum on the constitutional amendment to authorize slots in Maryland ("Slots ballot wording is criticized," Aug. 19)

While Maryland slot machine opponents may be guilty of sometimes overstating (and perhaps prematurely stating) their objections to the wording of this fall's ballot question, they are also correct on this central point: The proposal's claimed impact on education funding is misleading. The ballot language submitted this week by Secretary of State John P. McDonough goes to considerable length (about one-quarter of its total 100-odd words) to describe how revenue raised from the potential 15,000 machines would go to various forms of education spending.