New Voters

HAMPSTEAD -- The East Carroll Republican Club will conduct voter registration from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 3 in front of Hampstead Liquors in the Robert's Field Shopping Center.The Board of Election Supervisors for the county closes its books for registration at 9 p.m. Oct. 5. You must be registered by then to vote in the Nov. 3 general election.Information: 833-0445.

Four years after taking the helm of the NAACP and ushering in a generational change for the nation's oldest and most prominent civil rights organization, Ben Jealous arrived as a major force in American politics this year. At a time when restrictive voter identification laws and the purging of voter rolls in some states threatened to disenfranchise millions of minority voters, Mr. Jealous stepped up the NAACP's voter registration and mobilization -- an effor that played no small part in President Barack Obama's victory in November.

Would-be voters turned out in record numbers to beat the registration deadline for the Nov. 3 election."It was a real good mix," said Barbara Feaga, Howard County election board administrator. "There was no particular group represented. They were all procrastinators."As she spoke, Ms. Feaga looked over a dozen stacks of registration cards each about eight inches high. "This is less than half the volume," she said. "The rest is in the back room."Ms. Feaga estimates Monday's total will exceed 3,000.

SHADY GROVE — As she hurried to a Metro station after shaking hands with Democratic congressional candidate John Delaney, Lawrencia Atakora said she'd support him because of his positions on the issues. But she quickly added another factor influencing her decision: She hadn't heard a word from Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett. "I don't really know who he is," the 23-year-old Gaithersburg resident said of the Republican incumbent, who has represented Maryland's 6th District since she was 3 years old. "That could have something to do with it as well.

After years of watching the Republicans gaining on them, Democrats are cheered by figures released yesterday showing they beat the GOP by a margin of 2-to-1 in signing up new voters since the March primary.The number of registered independents, apparently inspired by the pithy Texan Ross Perot, shot up 39.8 percent over the same period, far outstripping the pace of the dominant parties.With perhaps 100 more registration forms still being processed late yesterday afternoon, state election administrator Gene M. Raynor said that the voter rolls in Maryland grew almost 7 percent after the 1988 general election, to a record 2.5 million eligible to vote in the Nov. 3 election.

With millions of new voters heading to the polls this November and many states introducing new voting technologies, election officials and voting monitors say they fear the combination is likely to create long lines, stressed-out poll workers and late tallies on Election Day. At least 11 states will use new voting equipment as the nation shifts away from touch-screen machines and to the paper ballots of optical scanners, which will be used by more than...

Besieged state election officials are staying late, working weekends and hiring additional help to process a record number of people registering to vote for the fall election. Days before the deadline, nearly 3 million Marylanders are eligible to cast ballots next month, more than 10 percent more than the number who signed up in time for the 2000 election. Voters in Maryland have until 9 p.m. Tuesday to complete their registration forms and get them by mail or in person to their local boards of election.

Despite taking over the governor's mansion for the first time in 36 years and announcing a drive for members, the Republican Party failed last year to increase its share of registered voters in Maryland. The state remains dominated by Democrats but continues to see a steady rise in independents. The State Board of Elections' preliminary year-end statistics for 2003 show that Republicans have no greater share of Maryland's electorate than they did before they captured the state's top job. Republicans remain outnumbered almost 2-to-1, with GOP voters making up 30 percent of the state's electorate and Democrats holding onto 56 percent.

WASHINGTON - A day after John McCain charged that the liberal-leaning voter registration group ACORN "may be perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history," it was disclosed yesterday that the FBI is investigating whether the group coordinated the filing of phony applications. Details of the inquiry weren't readily available. McClatchy Newspapers confirmed an Associated Press report disclosing the investigation and learned that the FBI was attempting to determine whether ACORN systematically encouraged the creation of fake voter registrations in several states.

Voter fraud is a serious issue, especially in an election expected to be as close as the presidential race in November, when the outcome may be decided by narrow margins in a handful of battleground states. But charges that the community group ACORN is committing widespread electoral fraud by flooding state elections boards with phony voter registration card applications sound more like partisan sniping than legitimate complaints aimed at protecting ballot box integrity. A story in last week's Miami Herald named seven states (Florida, North Carolina, Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, Colorado and Washington)

The picture in Wednesday's Sun ("Election draws lowest turnout in history," Sept. 14) illustrates my huge complaint and frustration about the lack of privacy while voting. If the machines were placed with the screens facing the wall instead of open to the public, our votes wouldn't be visible to anyone behind us. I don't accept any excuse. The Board of Election Supervisors has a duty to see that the screens are private and are wired so that each machine is shielded. Claudia R. Fielding

Baltimore's municipal election this year will be a unique and interesting test of the power of younger voters in a city long controlled by the political machines of the Democratic Party. Traditionally, younger voters are not active in the electoral process. They are not as inclined to participate, as they are often busy building careers, raising families or just trying to make ends meet. In a place like Baltimore, those issues are compounded by the single-sided nature of the electoral process.

Nearly one out of four Marylanders who have tried to register to vote at a Motor Vehicle Administration office in the past four years has not been added to the voter rolls, according to state records obtained by The Sun. Though some of these tens of thousands of would-be voters have undoubtedly found alternative methods to register, officials at the State Board of Elections say they field calls every year from residents who say they turned up...

WASHINGTON - A day after John McCain charged that the liberal-leaning voter registration group ACORN "may be perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history," it was disclosed yesterday that the FBI is investigating whether the group coordinated the filing of phony applications. Details of the inquiry weren't readily available. McClatchy Newspapers confirmed an Associated Press report disclosing the investigation and learned that the FBI was attempting to determine whether ACORN systematically encouraged the creation of fake voter registrations in several states.

Voter fraud is a serious issue, especially in an election expected to be as close as the presidential race in November, when the outcome may be decided by narrow margins in a handful of battleground states. But charges that the community group ACORN is committing widespread electoral fraud by flooding state elections boards with phony voter registration card applications sound more like partisan sniping than legitimate complaints aimed at protecting ballot box integrity. A story in last week's Miami Herald named seven states (Florida, North Carolina, Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, Colorado and Washington)

James Massey, director of the Harford County Board of Elections, typically carries voter registration forms with him. They came in handy last week when he went to the barbershop. Before his trim was complete Thursday, he had given out all the forms - to the barber, the receptionist and a few other customers. "I call it voter outreach," said Massey, whose staff is handling nearly 500 new registration forms a day. "It has been frenetic. A lot of people are saying that they want to vote this year.

Repeatedly, Republicans tried to kill it on Capitol Hill, predicting fraud and abuse, and a tilt of voter rolls in favor of the Democrats.But now, at least in Maryland, the GOP seems to be the beneficiary of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 -- the so-called "motor voter" law.While Democrats still outnumber Republicans in the number of new registrations since Jan. 1 -- the day the law went into effect -- the GOP is making impressive gains in...

MARYLAND LT. GOV. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend was invited the other afternoon to "walk for success" in the neighborhoods around Dr. Bernard Harris Elementary School in East Baltimore.After the tour, Townsend stood with her hosts among the broken glass and cracked pavement behind the school on North Caroline Street. She asked about the "platform" of BUILD (Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development), the activist group that during the summer had registered about 10,000 city voters and had been credited with pushing Townsend and her running mate, Parris N. Glendening, over the top in the governor's race.

With millions of new voters heading to the polls this November and many states introducing new voting technologies, election officials and voting monitors say they fear the combination is likely to create long lines, stressed-out poll workers and late tallies on Election Day. At least 11 states will use new voting equipment as the nation shifts away from touch-screen machines and to the paper ballots of optical scanners, which will be used by more than...

ARGENTEUIL, France -- It is odd that Nicolas Sarkozy, the front-runner in France's presidential race, finds himself on the defensive in the immigrant slums that could play a key role in today's first-round election. As France's top law enforcement official, the hard-charging Sarkozy spent a lot of time in the nation's tense housing complexes. As a streetwise descendant of Hungarian and Greek-Jewish immigrants, he has a better instinctive understanding of those areas than most politicians, even some of his critics say. But just before the riots that shook France in October 2005, Sarkozy paid a nocturnal visit to a grim housing complex in this industrial city on the northwest periphery Paris.