Turnout

The votes are in, and the results are clear: Baltimore's general election was a nearly complete waste of time, money and effort. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake got about 84 percent of the measly 45,000 votes that were cast. Among the City Council races, only one was close. In most of the rest, the winners of the Democratic primary ran up margins that would make dictators holding sham elections envious. One incumbent, Sharon Green Middleton, got 98 percent of the vote. This exercise cost city taxpayers about $1.5 million, or more than $33 per voter.

Baltimore elections officials predicted very low turnout at the polls Tuesday, as city residents vote in the general election for mayor and other races. The head of the city Board of Elections said he expected that about half as many ballots would be cast in the general election as in the September primary - which attracted record low turnout. "My hope is always to have the total electorate to come out and vote, but of course we know that's not happening," said election chief Armstead B. Crowley Jones Jr. "The electorate is just not energized.

Councilman Warren Branch and write-in candidate Shannon Sneed, vying for the City Council seat representing District 13, shared a small patch of sidewalk turf outside Fort Worthington Elementary on Oliver Street in east Baltimore. They shook hands, gave out fliers and called out to the trickle of voters who headed into the school as city voters headed to the polls Tuesday to cast their ballots in the city's general election. "It's been like they predicted — slow," Sneed said, as she handed out cards with directions for voters to complete a write-in ballot.

Two Baltimore City Council candidates were poised to overcome write-in challenges Tuesday, converting their Democratic nominations into general election victories. Councilman Warren Branch of the 13th District was leading write-in challenger Shannon Sneed, widening a margin of victory from the September primary. Meanwhile, political newcomer Nick Mosby appeared to have turned back a write-in challenge from incumbent Councilwoman Belinda Conaway, whom he defeated in the 7th District's Democratic primary.

In the middle of a sprawling, muddy farm in Hunt Valley, Lee Bartnick sat in a folding chair like a monarch. From the picnic blanket that he and his wife set up, he took in the 10th annual Legacy Chase race Saturday at Shawan Downs with brie and crackers, some potato salad and wine in reach. He didn't have binoculars. For him, the race is more about relaxing. "This is the horse version of tailgating. Not very rowdy stuff," he said, sipping from a can of Coke Zero. "It's just a nice event to come out to. And sometimes, there are good horses.

I was appalled after reading your editorial "Get out the vote" (Sept. 15). While you are welcome to blame low voter turnout on anything you wish, when you refer to Baltimore's general election as pointless, a line has been crossed. I shouldn't need to remind you that people have been fighting and dying in this country for more than 200 years for the right to hold free elections in a free society. To say make such a statement is shameful. You owe all veterans an apology. Gary Smith

Here's what happened while you were sleeping on Tuesday. Or curing cancer, or searching the Internet for Scarlett Johansson pictures or whatever you were doing rather than voting: The number of people who decide things in Baltimore, already a fraction of the city, shrank even further. That is the upshot of a lower-than-low turnout in Tuesday's primary elections. Only 23 percent of registered voters, or fewer than one out of every four, chose who would lead the city for the next four years.

In his explanation for the anemic turnout for the city's primary election, University of Baltimore public affairs professor Lenneal J. Henderson paints with too broad of a brush ("Election draws lowest turnout in history," Sept. 14). The professor attributes it to "a cloud of pessimism that has descended on the electorate nationally. " The cloud appears to be much more selective than that, falling predominantly on liberal and progressive Democrats. Victories on the same day by conservative Republicans in special Congressional elections in Nevada and, of all places, New York City, were due to heavy turnouts by impassioned voters (a significant number of whom, especially in New York, were registered Democrats)

A fraction of the city's electorate trickled into polls for Tuesday's primary — the lowest recorded turnout in Baltimore's history. About 75,000 Baltimore residents voted in the election, with 100 percent of precincts reporting, according to elections officials. That total amounts to about 23 percent of registered voters and about 12 percent of the city's 620,000 population. Cheswolde resident Barbara Hoffman, a former state senator, lamented the low turnout. "How mortifying," she said.

Add another reason to your analysis of Tuesday's dismal Baltimore primary election turnout - a state that actually doesn't want people to be engaged in the political process, especially if there's a possibility they might want to change it. Despite the crocodile tears of politicians asking "what is wrong" with us uninspired, frustrated voters, behind the scenes Maryland's third and fourth-largest political parties are embroiled in a lawsuit for...