Election Day

Laurel's Board of Election Supervisors is looking for city residents to serve as election day judges for the city's general election Nov. 1. Board officials have said that they prefer judges who have prior experience, but that experience as an election day judge is not necessary. Interested residents should send a resume or letter of interest to Kimberley Rau, clerk to the Board of Election Supervisors. For more information about serving as a Laurel election day judge, call 301-725-5300, ext. 2121 or email krau@laurel.md.us .

It has been a rough week or so for the Obama administration. From Benghazi to the tapping of reporters' phones to the IRS admitting that it targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny, the press is in a frenzy, and many are questioning President Barack Obama's future. If the president does not soon regain control of the narrative, he is likely to suffer the same fate as his predecessor - a collapse in public confidence and a vastly diminished second term. To understand President Obama's situation, we need to explore a little presidential theory and some recent presidential history.

You're not voting? Are you sure? Because if you do: Cantler's Riverside Inn in Annapolis is throwing an Election Day party with all-you-can-eat crabs for $22.99 and returns watching on big TVs. Fleet Street Market in Fells Point is giving ten percent off to customers who take an oath that they've voted. Midtown BBQ & Brew is offering 20 percent off the entire check for patrons wearing an "I Voted" sticker. Gino's Burger and Chicken in Towson will give you a free entree with the purchase of a side and drink if you're wearing an "I Voted" sticker.

A little more than three weeks remain until the May 7 city election in Havre de Grace and though the campaign has been relatively quiet to date, things can be expected to heat up as Election Day draws near. This year's election features a race for mayor and for three city council seats. Mayor Wayne Dougherty is seeking a fourth term and is challenged by former city councilman Jim Miller. In the council races, incumbents John Correri and Randy Craig are seeking re-election. Challengers include former councilman Fred Cullum and two first-time candidates, Thomas Barnes and Robert Greene.

I was very surprised to read Matt Patterson's commentary in The Sun ("America the dictatorship?" Nov. 27). How did someone get a pro-freedom message past The Sun's editorial board at the White House? By the way, congratulations on your election victory. The media has now fulfilled its agenda which is to lift takers over makers. By 2016, we'll have a $20 trillion hole with no way to get out plus all the other little things this administration will continue to do as in Obamacare, bailouts, coverups, and, of course, let us not forget President Barack Obama's favorite constituency, illegal immigrants.

The same forecast model that showed Hurricane Sandy hooking into the East Coast as much as a week ahead of time is now calling for a rainy, snowy and windy nor'easter after Election Day. The models "suggest no rest for the weary in the United States," according to the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center . The center's long-range forecast discussion calls for "a more typical nor'easter" than anything like Sandy, but it's still of note considering...

The automated Election Day phone calls telling Marylanders to "relax" because Gov. Martin O'Malley had already won were generated by a Democratic operative who said he was working for Republican Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. The Baltimore Sun tracked the calls, which came while polls were still open, to a company called Robodial.org, a Pennsylvania-based outfit that works exclusively for progressive and Democratic candidates. The company's owner said a representative of Universal Elections of Baltimore paid for and recorded the call.

If early voting numbers are any indication, the polls will be packed Tuesday on Election Day. By late Thursday afternoon, an estimated 6 percent of Harford's eligible voters had cast their ballot, leaving plenty of others left to vote on Election Day. Besides the presidential race, which typically draws a lot of voters, this year's election features a number of controversial statewide issues on the ballot. "I have no idea, but I would imagine that we'll have another large turnout on Tuesday.

Baltimore's Department of Public Works will not be collecting trash or recycling Nov. 2, because of Election Day. Residents whose trash or recycling is normally collected on Tuesday should put trash out on Nov. 6. In addition, no bulk trash collection will be scheduled Tuesday. City officials said that the Quarantine Road Landfill, the Northwest Transfer Station and the Eastern, Western and Northwestern sanitation yards will be closed Tuesday. Parking meters and regulations in Baltimore will be in effect.

Forty-five minutes into his speed dating-style presentation, County Councilman Chris Trumbauer had finally reached "Question O" on the Anne Arundel County ballot, the most crowded of any in Maryland. "Last one!" Trumbauer said to an Annapolis crowd during the recent meeting. "You guys excited? Ready for a new act? The Trumbauer Show's getting old, I know. " The long ballot piles 15 local questions atop of seven statewide initiatives and a presidential election, prompting fears that Anne Arundel voters will face long lines as people try to figure out the questions in the voting booth or that voters will just skip them altogether.

Gov. Martin O'Malley's administration asked lawmakers Thursday to expand the state's early voting program, allow absentee voters to mark their ballots online and offer same-day registration during early voting. The governor pushed for additional early voting sites, more early voting days and extended hours after many locations saw lines of an hour or more during last fall's election, an O'Malley aide told the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee. Rebecca Mules, the governor's deputy legislative officer, said the idea to move some of the absentee-voting process online arose after the success of online balloting for Maryland utility workers sent to the Northeast to help with Hurricane Sandy cleanup on Election Day. And allowing voters to register and vote the same day — along with requiring the appropriate technology to execute the program — would increase turnout, Mules said.

Under Maryland law, there's a limit to how much money a citizen can donate to state political campaigns — $4,000 to a single candidate, $10,000 in total donations during a four-year election cycle. But some Marylanders are less limited than others. Take, for instance, the developer Edward St. John. Through dozens of corporations he owns that operate out of the headquarters of St. John Properties in Baltimore County, he's funneled more than $250,000 to Maryland politicians of both parties over the past two years.

Still reeling from the Republican defeat in the 2012 presidential election, House Speaker John Boehner warned in a Ripon Society speech the other day that the re-elected Obama administration is now out to kill off their party. The embattled speaker declared that the administration would focus "everything in the next 22 months," until the next midterm congressional elections, on attempting "to annihilate the Republican Party ... to shove us into the dustbin of history. " President Barack Obama undoubtedly wishes that American voters will somehow drive the GOP from its troublesome control of the House of Representatives, giving him Democratic majorities there and in the Senate.

Expanding the opportunity for qualified residents to vote in an election is seldom, if ever, a bad thing, so Gov. Martin O'Malley's decision to expand early voting and seek same-day registration in Maryland is a welcome development. Too bad that Republicans in Annapolis are already lining up against the measures on purely partisan grounds. One of the more notable features of the 2012 General Election was the high early-voter turnout in Maryland. Some people waited for hours, particularly in Baltimore, Anne Arundel and Prince George's counties, to cast a ballot before Election Day. Altogether, more than 430,000 Marylanders took advantage of early voting (about 16 percent of the total votes cast)

Shortly after the 1988 presidential election, pollsters asked Democrats whom they favored to be their party's nominee in 1992. The strongest candidates were Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Gov. Mario M. Cuomo of New York. The governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, didn't even register. Eight years ago, after another election, the pollsters tried again. The front-runners for the 2008 Democratic nomination, they found, were Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and John F. Kerry. The newly elected senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, wasn't on the list.

As Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen Jr. eyes a run for the U.S. Senate in 2014, readers deserve to know the truth about his record on Israel and Iran. Some readers seem to believe that democracy ends on Election Day, and that afterward citizens give up the right to criticize their elected officials. I disagree. As an investigative reporter - and as Congressman Van Hollen's Republican opponent in the last election - I closely examined his record. It is true Mr. Van Hollen was a co-sponsor of legislation to authorize U.S. support for Iron Dome, the missile defense system that helped shield Israeli citizens from terrorist rockets fired from Gaza.

Only five weeks remain before the November general election, but Reginald G. Avery's campaign for Howard County Council is just getting started. The 56-year-old Oakland Mills resident became a Republican county council candidate Monday after an earlier candidate nominated in the primary officially withdrew. Avery admitted his chances of unseating incumbent Democrat Calvin Ball in East Columbia's District 2 election are slim at best, but he said "I believe residents should have a choice.

Watching election night coverage on the cable networks was quite entertaining, though I don't know why dozens of people were huddled together on CNN's set. It looked like the Last Supper squared. This is the kind of thing the fabled empty suits in TV land think is a good idea. It's not, unless confusion is the goal. Knowing the general shape of things — that the Democrats were going to be shellacked, with the only question being the extent of the shellacking — I couldn't resist looking at and listening to the gaggle of committed Obama worshipers on MSNBC either.

I was very surprised to read Matt Patterson's commentary in The Sun ("America the dictatorship?" Nov. 27). How did someone get a pro-freedom message past The Sun's editorial board at the White House? By the way, congratulations on your election victory. The media has now fulfilled its agenda which is to lift takers over makers. By 2016, we'll have a $20 trillion hole with no way to get out plus all the other little things this administration will continue to do as in Obamacare, bailouts, coverups, and, of course, let us not forget President Barack Obama's favorite constituency, illegal immigrants.

Long lines that caused voters in Maryland and several other states to wait hours at polling places on Election Day are prompting a push for new laws to speed the process of casting a ballot. Lawmakers in Congress and the Maryland General Assembly say they are considering a broad range of ideas, such as increasing the number of early voting centers available in high-population jurisdictions and offering federal grants to states that find ways to streamline the voting process. Maryland election officials are investigating complaints about wait times in the Nov. 6 election, including reports that some people waited for hours despite lower-than-expected turnout.