Election Day

Imagine the job announcement: "State of Maryland seeks temporary employees to safeguard democracy. Candidates must be willing to work for below the minimum wage without benefits or gratitude, enjoy inflexible and long workdays, attend multiple training sessions, and be prepared to deal with angry voters. Interested? We want you to be a Maryland election judge." As the General Assembly considers how to regain the trust of Marylanders in the way elections are conducted, it would do well to look beyond early voting, paper trails and Diebold machine flaws.

Gertrude Walker sums up Maryland's reluctance to make voters present identification when casting ballots in one word: unbelievable.The elections supervisor in St. Lucie County, Fla., noted that her state requires two pieces of identification from voters on Election Day.Walker also said that Florida state legislators recently approved another law requiring voters to take a photo ID with them to the polls.The issue of voter identification in Maryland has resurfaced after revelations last week that Kweisi Mfume, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and possible mayoral candidate, voted in Baltimore elections while living in Baltimore County.

JUST ASK "Landslide" John S. Arnick, the veteran state legislator from Dundalk, if you should go to the polls in tomorrow's general election. He knows better than most of us that every vote does, indeed, count.This September, Mr. Arnick won his Democratic primary by 15 votes. That was a vast improvement over his 1990 primary election, which he won by six votes.Carolyn M. Roeding was even more dependent on a handful of her supporters showing up at the polls Sept. 15. The Pasadena community activist lost her Democratic primary for state delegate by five votes.

Since Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House and County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger was a teen-ager, Doris J. Suter has been dogging votes in Baltimore County.Over the years, she has seen the county's political tide ebb and flow from Democratic machine days when the east side ruled to Republicans Spiro T. Agnew's and Ellen R. Sauerbrey's rides to the top.As caretaker of 357,534 voters in 187 precincts, this 66-year-old grandmotherly administrator has overcome personal obstacles to run the state's second-largest elections office with finesse and lots of down-to-earth humor.

GOV. PARRIS N. Glendening was on a campaign binge last weekend, stopping at no fewer than 10 events, including a garden party thrown for him Sunday evening by the North Central Democratic Coalition in Baltimore.Glendening, taking nothing for granted this year, spent the whirlwind weekend shuttling between Prince George's County and Baltimore to drive home the importance of getting out the vote against his likely opponent in the general election, Republican Ellen R. Sauerbrey."This is about November," Glendening told a crowd of more than 200 supporters who gathered at the Northwood home of Ronald S. Cuffie and Lillian Jones-Cuffie.

PERHAPS what we see in the relations between Gov. Parris N. Glendening's campaign and the coalition of Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and Prince George's County Executive Wayne Curry is an elegant ostrich mating dance. In any case, it appears to violate normal aspects of the political process in at least a few key respects.First, let's mention a point well-known by politicians: Elections are won in the messy business of putting together a voting coalition by either chance or effective bargaining.The problem with the current scenario that has the governor as the pouting, spurned bride and Mr. Schmoke and Mr. Curry as recalcitrant no-shows is that no one seems to be able to figure out who has the weight of the responsibility for putting the pieces back together.

Voters needed to work election days for countyThe Anne Arundel County Board of Supervisors of Elections is looking for registered voters to work on both primary Election Day, Sept. 15, and on general Election Day, Nov. 3.Individuals are needed to check in voters and assist at the voting unit. They will be paid $100 for each election worked.Information: 410-222-6600.Md. Chamber of Commerce backs Miller for re-electionThe Maryland Chamber of Commerce has endorsed Sen. Thomas V. Mike Miller for re-election to the 27th District state Senate seat.

While trailing in the hunt for money in the governor's race, Republican Ellen R. Sauerbrey has tapped into a broad base of small-dollar but ardent contributors who could generate important support for her at the polls.Even as Sauerbrey is making inroads into the state's business community for larger donations, she is drawing significant numbers of contributions -- $25 and $50 at a time -- from the believers who buoyed her candidacy in 1994."These are the folks that are the hardest to convince to contribute to a political campaign," said Bruce E. Mentzer, a national GOP media consultant based in Towson.

In a possible violation of state election laws, at least a half-dozen Old Court Middle School employees were recruited and paid $125 each on primary election day to work the polls for state Senate candidate -- and current school board member -- Robert Fulton Dashiell.Dashiell, who was soundly defeated in his primary bid to unseat 10th District Democratic state Sen. Delores G. Kelley, confirmed that the $125 checks were given out at Dashiell's election night ++ headquarters at the Forum, a catering hall in Northwest Baltimore.

ON TUESDAY, which was Election Day in East Baltimore and the lesser parts of America, here was one of those moments capturing so much that we treasure in a democracy but which, for reasons unknown, seldom finds expression in the great textbooks of our schools."

Only weeks before Election Day in Annapolis, it seemed the Democratic Party was in peril. Its nominee for mayor stepped down amid revelations about financial problems, and party leaders worried that any new candidate was up against almost insurmountable odds and that voter dismay over the mayor's race would negatively affect the city council contests. But on Tuesday, Anne Arundel County Councilman Joshua Cohen won the mayoral race, and Democrats picked up two seats on the council, a formidable showing.

WASHINGTON - -The second "change" election in a row could add fresh momentum to a heavyweight rematch in Maryland next year between Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley and his Republican predecessor, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. Republicans were encouraged by Tuesday's defeat of an incumbent Democratic governor in New Jersey and the election of Virginia's first Republican governor in more than a decade. Voters anxious over a slumping economy told exit pollsters they favored candidates who represented change, a dynamic that favored Barack Obama in 2008.

Lawmakers have begun drafting plans for early voting after Marylanders approved the practice last fall, but the state elections chief urged them yesterday to limit the process or risk a disaster during next year's election. Testifying on voting issues in Annapolis, elections administrator Linda H. Lamone cautioned legislators to abandon a plan that would allow "anyone to vote anywhere," in favor of allowing voters to cast early decisions only in their home counties. "Let's wait until we get our sea legs," she said, before expanding early-voting options.

When Columbia residents Jonathan and Delma Branch volunteered to help other Howard residents campaign for Barack Obama, they had no idea what to expect. "This was our first time ever doing anything like this," Jonathan Branch, 53, told about 40 people gathered at a Columbia Democratic Club meeting Wednesday night in Jeffers Hill. The Branches went to Pennsylvania to knock on doors and worked the phones in the Columbia office. As did other first-timers and even experienced volunteers, the Branches said they believed that the campaign was not just about whether Republicans or Democrats took power, but that it was part of America's long road toward racial and social justice despite some voters' angry rejection of their entreaties.

A vote to transcend politics of prejudice On Tuesday, I voted, with my daughter by my side, and I experienced something unexpected: My eyes welled up, and a tear dropped. I suppose I was simply overwhelmed by the fact that I was actually voting for an African-American candidate for president ("Making history," Nov. 5). I am too young to remember the civil rights struggle. But I am a student of history, and I live in this world where prejudice and ignorance still reign. And frankly, I never expected that this day would come.

So this is what "change" looks like. After a campaign built on a word that many challenged as vague and meaningless, change came swiftly Tuesday. The polls had barely opened - with long lines of new voters, or simply newly invigorated ones - and already it was clear that this was going to be a different election than we'd seen in the last couple of presidential cycles. A giddy, festive day - free doughnuts! - turned into a celebratory night, from the new president-elect's huge victory party in Chicago to spontaneous streetcorner eruptions across the country.

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.

Man guilty of involuntary manslaughter in stabbing A 20-year-old Baltimore man has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for his involvement in an altercation that led to the fatal stabbing of a Marine reservist, prosecutors said in a news release yesterday. Maurice Crosby of the 5200 block of Ready Ave. could face up to 10 years in prison for his part in the death of Michael L. Simms in June 2007, the Baltimore state's attorney's office said. The jury acquitted Crosby of first-degree murder in Simms' death, the news release said.

I'm the person you see at the store on Christmas Eve, buying that last present, or five. Dinner at my house? The starting time, if not the cuisine, is decidedly Continental. And, as my editors will attest, there is no deadline late enough that I can't blow it. So, when I hear "early voting," I think: getting to the polling place while it's still light out. But this year, even procrastinating Marylanders will face a ballot question asking if they want to start voting as early as two weeks in advance of Election Day. We're pretty late to this show - more than 30 states already allow some form of it. And this year, with so many people so engaged in the presidential contest, voters are casting early ballots at a record pace - predictions are that as many as one-third of voters will have made their picks by the time Election Day rolls around nine days from now. It makes sense, on so many levels: Not everyone can find time on a weekday to vote - particularly given the high turnout and voting machine glitches that have created long lines at many polling places in recent years.

School officials and parents across the nation are turning an increasingly critical eye on the time- honored tradition of voters' casting ballots in the gymnasiums and hallways of neighborhood school buildings while classes go on as usual just a few yards away. Citing a list of safety concerns, many officials are opting to keep youngsters home on Nov. 4, Election Day. "School districts across the country now spend millions of dollars each year on controlling access to buildings with locked doors and surveillance cameras to keep strangers out," said Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland-based advocacy group.