Polling Places

TIJUANA, Mexico -- It is the year 2000. Millions of Mexican immigrants line up outside polling places, not only in Los Angeles, Brooklyn and other major locations in the United States where Mexicans have settled, but in hundreds of towns across the country, preparing to vote in Mexico's presidential elections.Thousands of Mexican election officials have fanned out across the United States to supervise the balloting, which caps a campaign in which candidates barnstormed through Mexican population centers in dozens of American states.

LAGOS, Nigeria -- Five months after the death of Nigeria's longtime military dictator raised the prospect of greater political openness here, Nigerians cast ballots yesterday for local government officers across the country.The voting, viewed as an early test of the new government's seriousness about reform, appears to have been generally peaceful and the turnout high, according to government officials and Western diplomats.In Lagos, with 8 million people the country's biggest city, the normally traffic-choked streets were eerily deserted.

Charter will have a Saturday election, not the traditional Tuesday.After weeks of jostling dates to meet federal and state guidelines, county officials have chosen May 2 for a vote on the proposed charter, which would change the county's form of government."

THE SIX villages of west Columbia will hold elections Saturday for village board members and Columbia Council representatives.In Dorsey's Search, "dump and vote" will be held from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Linden Hall.Residents who vote will be able to dump unwanted items in trash bins supplied by the county.Neither hazardous waste nor trash that can be placed at curbside for regular pickup will be accepted.There will also be refreshments and prizes.Harper's Choice residents can vote between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. near Dunkin' Donuts in the village center.

TUZLA, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Prospects for a smooth election tomorrow did not look good yesterday.Those dim prospects were reflected in the eyes of perplexed refugees jammed together in the rain outside a government building, hoping someone inside could tell them where to vote.The same was evident in the frustration wrinkling the brows of supervisors for United Nations police monitors who have spent most of the past week planning how to move refugees to voting places."The only way we can escape disaster is if my prayers are answered and we have enough bad weather to keep people at home," one monitor said.

Before going out to vote next week, residents living in the northernmost parts of Baltimore should check to make sure their polling places have not changed, election officials say.The city election board has slashed 36 polling places, from 108 to 72, in the vast 27th Ward along the city's northern border, said Barbara E. Jackson, the city election administrator. The changes will be in effect for Tuesday's primary election.The 27th Ward is by far Baltimore's largest, both geographically and in the number of registered voters.

A SAD SPECTACLE," that's what West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd called the scene on the Senate floor a week ago. Well, it certainly was a spectacle. The more than 100 hours of debate on the constitutional amendment to balance the budget had finally come to an end, the appointed hour for the roll call had arrived. But no yeas and nays were forthcoming. Instead, Republicans huddled around a Democratic holdout trying to win the 67th vote for passage of the amendment. Democrats sat joking on their side of the aisle, seemingly unconcerned about the heated deliberations a few feet away.

In the Baltimore County courthouse races, the sheriff had a commanding lead over his challenger, while the incumbent clerk of the Circuit Court and her opponent were separated by only a few hundred votes.County voters spread their votes fairly evenly among six candidates for three seats on the Orphans' Court judges, but the longtime register of wills and his challenger were just a few hundred votes apart with more than half the votes counted.Baltimore County State's Attorney Sandra A. O'Connor and judges Lawrence R. Daniels and John O. Hennegan were unopposed.

GOV. WILLIAM Donald Schaefer wasn't the only voter left waiting for his polling place to open on Tuesday. Across Baltimore City many polling places opened late because the one Democratic election judge and one Republican election judge as required by law weren't on hand, said Barbara E. Jackson, the Baltimore elections board administrator.For some unexplained reason on Tuesday, a large number of election judges -- at least 100 -- failed to show up at their assigned polls.The board of elections had 45 stand-by election judges on hand, Ms. Jackson said, and all were dispatched in cabs to polling places that called for help.

Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke vowed yesterday that police would arrest anyone trying to intimidate city voters Tuesday, while Democratic leaders and others stepped up their criticism of a group formed to monitor "ballot security."Plans by Republican gadfly Ross Z. Pierpont to station security guards at certain polling places in the city and elsewhere are "an attempt to harass and intimidate black people," Mr. Schmoke said."They are not going to be successful in the city or anywhere else," he said.

The Annapolis Board of Supervisors of Elections will vote Wednesday to decide on new polling places for the city's mayoral election in the fall, after Anne Arundel County school officials decided that allowing schools to be used as polling places would be disruptive and pose a potential security risk. Superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell informed Annapolis Mayor Ellen O. Moyer last October that the county school system would no longer serve as polling places during the city's municipal elections, citing the use of schools' multipurpose areas, often used dually as gymnasiums and cafeterias, as disruptive during the school day. Maxwell also raised the issue of school security.

The polls weren't even open early yesterday when Heru-ka Anu began to rally his fellow voters. Anu, who said he had been waiting with his wife at the head of the line at Baltimore's Dickey Hill Elementary School since 4:30 a.m., led a chant of Barack Obama's campaign slogan, "Yes, We Can." Moments later, his wife Nana emerged from the voting booth with her thumbs poking skyward. "Yes," she exclaimed, "we did!" Across the Baltimore region and beyond, a crush of voters queued up early, often enduring waits of an hour or more with little if any complaint.

For: Early Voting; Polling Places; Absentee Ballots "Authorizes the General Assembly to enact legislation to allow qualified voters to vote at polling places inside or outside of their election districts or wards and to vote up to two weeks before an election. This amendment also authorizes the General Assembly to enact legislation to allow absentee voting by qualified voters who choose to vote by absentee ballot, in addition to voters who are absent at the time of the election or who are unable to vote personally."

By the time polls open tomorrow morning, officials predict that as many as 35 percent of Florida voters already will have cast ballots via early voting or absentee ballot. Good thing. That's nearly 4 million people who can stay away while the rest of the state's Nov. 4 electorate - an estimated 5.6 million people - votes the old-fashioned way: at the precinct polling place. Early and absentee voters have relieved pressure on polling places in advance of what many say will be a monumental turnout.

Marylanders will decide Tuesday whether the state can create an early voting law, but Democratic and Republican leaders disagree about the impact such a change would have on the integrity of elections. The proposal in Question 1 would amend the state constitution and allow the General Assembly to craft a law adding Maryland to the list of 32 states that permit voters to go to polling places before Election Day. The only neighboring state that has early voting is West Virginia. State Democratic leaders say early voting could ease lines at polls and encourage more participation in elections.

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.

A group that has protested the state's use of electronic voting machines is advocating the use of paper ballots in the November presidential election in case of long lines at state polls. SAVE Our Votes released a report yesterday predicting that some voters could wait hours to cast ballots in the Nov. 4 election. The study, by physicist William Edelstein, found that voters at most polling places could experience waits of more than two hours. Edelstein, a member of SAVE Our Votes, a nonprofit group that advocates for secure, accessible and verifiable elections in the state, said that even if the state brings in additional voting machines, the flood of voters could be overwhelming.

WASHINGTON -- Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama fought to a draw on the biggest primary day in history, with neither Democrat gaining a decisive edge in the nomination race. Clinton captured California, the biggest Super Tuesday prize, thanks to strong support from Latino voters. Winning there staved off an Obama surge and left the all-important delegate contest very close, guaranteeing that the Democratic battle would go on for many weeks, if not months. A jubilant Clinton congratulated Obama and told supporters in New York last night that she looks "forward to continuing our campaign and our debates about how to leave this country better off."

Last year's primary election in Baltimore was marred by polling places that opened late and election judges who weren't familiar with new voting equipment. But state and city elections officials promise that this year's vote, on Tuesday, will be different. They met Wednesday to go over last-minute details and have shared information on election day do's and don'ts. The University of Baltimore's Schaefer Center for Public Policy is helping to recruit and train judges, and poll workers should be accustomed to touch-screen voting devices.

Lawmakers have proposed ending the state requirement that two Democrats and two Republicans oversee election returns at every precinct. The move is aimed at avoiding scrambles for poll workers from a minority party on Election Day. The change would allow election officials to hire all poll workers statewide on a nonpartisan basis. The General Assembly is weighing dozens of bills that would fine-tune election laws in response to problems during last year's campaign, such as candidates changing their names to get a better position on the ballot and a shortage of election judges that caused long waits outside polling places.