Voting Booth

In an effort to increase voter turnout, the Baltimore City Council wants to allow minors to accompany their parents into voting booths.Councilwoman Helen Holton of 5th District introduced the resolution at last night's council meeting.The resolution asks the chairmen of the city Senate and House delegations to the Maryland General Assembly to introduce and support legislation that would permit children younger than 18 to be allowed into the booths. Children 5 and younger now are allowed to accompany their parents.

I've come to think of it as the political equivalent of global warming: Election season seems to get longer and more heated every cycle. I'm not quite as distressed about this as that little girl from Colorado, melting down because she's tired of "Bronco Bama" and Mitt Romney. (Although, note to Mom: your kid is upset, however cutely, and your first thought is to grab your phone and YouTube her?) But really, the noise level this year has been close to deafening, even here in the decidedly unswingy-state of Maryland.

KENOSHA, Wis. -- In the cluttered offices of striking United Auto Workers Local 960 yesterday, there was abundant evidence both of Big Labor's return to the Democratic fold and of its much reduced clout.Eugene Johnson, a machine operator with 22 years in at Macwhyte Co., said he voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and isn't afraid to split his ballot when the right candidate comes along. But after two years of the Republican Congress, he has had enough.Democrats won all of his votes yesterday, from President Clinton, a man about whom Johnson has some frank reservations, to Lydia Spotswood, a labor-friendly Kenosha alderman trying to unseat one of the Republican freshmen swept into office two years ago."

This is a story about recycling, and how everything is politically charged this election season. My husband carried our newspapers - which, by the way, he believes are hopelessly in the bag for President Barack Obama - to the curb the night before the recycling truck was scheduled. He left them there, not in a recycling bin, but in the cute, little box I keep in the kitchen to hold them. Next morning, the men on the recycling truck took the newspapers - and my cute, little box - and I cursed them.

MIAMI - As many as 1,700 Miami-Dade County voters invalidated their presidential ballots because they mistakenly punched the chad immediately below the one corresponding to their preferred candidate, a California researcher has found. Those voters penetrated a meaningless chad - one that didn't correspond to any candidate - probably because their punch cards were not properly aligned with ballot books in the voting booth, said Anthony Salvanto, a faculty fellow in the political science department at the University of California at Irvine.

Where: Your neighborhood polling place. Look at your voter registration card, or if you've lost that, visit www. elections.state.md.us. When: Anytime between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. Tuesday. We recommend going early. Why: Make your civic duty sexy and bring a date. Or, heck, bring more than one. Of course, only one person is allowed in the voting booth at a time. Voting is free of charge, and in most precincts you'll even get an "I Voted" sticker. It is limited to those who have registered and are 18 and older.

Cardinal Edwin F. O'Brienapplies the Bible in a convenient - to him - but logically inconsistent way ("Redefining marriage in Md.?" March 2). He cites the book of Genesis, which says that God created males and females, blessed them and told them to multiply. Fair enough, and many of us have enjoyed accepting that mission. But the Bible does not say that everyone must accept that mission - as surely the cardinal knows, since he and his fellow Roman Catholic priests have rejected it, choosing celibacy instead.

Pretty soon you, the American voter, will enter the sacred sanctity of the voting booth and cast your ballot for the next U.S. president. Or not. It's also possible that your ballot will go back in time and participate in the election of 1848 or wind up in a distant galaxy, helping to elect an alien being with 73 eyeballs (slogan: "A Being of Vision"). The truth is, you don't know what will happen to your ballot, because you might be using one of the new electronic voting machines. These are supposed to eliminate the screw-ups we had in the 2000 election, in which the ballots of thousands of Florida voters were not counted because, due to poor design, many Floridians have the intelligence of a sugar beet.

You weren't counted in the official voter turnout, Jason, Jonathan and Andrea, but you sure made your presence felt at the voting booth Tuesday. Welcome to civic duty.You turned out in force at the polls, kids, strapped into strollers, dragged behind the mystery curtain or begging to pull the magic lever as your distracted parents weighed the fate of the nation.For lots of voting parents, leaving the kids at home wasn't an option this election. The daily trip to the baby sitter's included a stop at the polls, and little Katie came along for the ride.

Today is your chance. For months, you've listened to the candidates' rhetoric. You've let columnists and commentators tell you how you ought to make up your mind. You've read countless news articles and endured a barrage of advertising from political hopefuls and lobbyists.It is Election Day. At last, it's your turn.Those of you who read this editorial page probably do not have to be told not to waste it. But someone else -- friends, family members, co-workers -- may need a reminder. So remind them.

Speaking last week at a regular meeting of the Edgewood Community Council, Jansen Robinson touched upon one of the greatest disgraces of American civic life, namely that too many people just can't be bothered to vote. Robinson, who has been an Edgewood community activist for a number of years and has made an unsuccessful run for public office, also hit the nail on the head when he enumerated the penalty for not voting, namely being neglected by the government. As Robinson eloquently put it: "If we lived up to our potential we would never have to ask elected officials for anything.

Cardinal Edwin F. O'Brienapplies the Bible in a convenient - to him - but logically inconsistent way ("Redefining marriage in Md.?" March 2). He cites the book of Genesis, which says that God created males and females, blessed them and told them to multiply. Fair enough, and many of us have enjoyed accepting that mission. But the Bible does not say that everyone must accept that mission - as surely the cardinal knows, since he and his fellow Roman Catholic priests have rejected it, choosing celibacy instead.

I read with great interest that the supercommittee isn't quite sure they will be able to reach agreement on their assignment to find a deficit reduction package that will put this country back on the road to financial responsibility. What they might do is agree on is an outline of smaller concessions and defer the most difficult decisions until after the 2012 elections. This, of course, comes as no surprise to most Americans who have little faith in the ability of our elected officials to make bipartisan decisions for the good of the country instead of "kicking the can down the road" for someone else to deal with.

The more I hear Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert talking about their rally scheduled for Saturday on Washington's National Mall, the more I wonder if there is anything that is not a laughing matter in our national life any more. Actually, laughter might be too active and committed a concept for the kind of consumers of humor that we have become, thanks in large part to TV comedians like David Letterman a generation ago and now Colbert and Stewart, where everything is irony and postmodern mockery.

Can you name all three branches of government? Can you name even one? Do you know who your congressman is? Your senators? Do you even know how many senators each state gets? If you know the answers to these questions, you're in the minority. A very high percentage of the U.S. electorate isn't very well qualified to vote, if by "qualified" you mean having a basic understanding of our government, its functions and its challenges. Almost half of the American public doesn't know that each state gets two senators.

It was 10 in the morning outside the elementary school in northern Baltimore County where I vote, and the usual gaggle of smiling volunteers was working the sidewalk, thrusting campaign literature into the hands of people coming in and encouraging them to vote for their candidate. This is a weird phenomenon you see only on Election Day. But it makes you wonder: What if this sort of thing happened in other walks of life? What if every time you went to the supermarket, there were people at the entrance thrusting fliers into your hands and murmuring, "StarKist Chunk Light Tuna, appreciate your support" or "Thomas' Original English Muffins - can we count on you picking up a package?"

I read with great interest that the supercommittee isn't quite sure they will be able to reach agreement on their assignment to find a deficit reduction package that will put this country back on the road to financial responsibility. What they might do is agree on is an outline of smaller concessions and defer the most difficult decisions until after the 2012 elections. This, of course, comes as no surprise to most Americans who have little faith in the ability of our elected officials to make bipartisan decisions for the good of the country instead of "kicking the can down the road" for someone else to deal with.

It's a warm fall day, the radio is blaring, and the smell of baked goods fills the air. A group of Harper's Choice Middle School eighth-graders are camped outside Kristen Quade's home cooking the staple sweets for a successful bake sale. After raising $300 from lemonade stands and bake sales in their community this summer, these four girls decided to give their money to a political cause: C. Stephen Wallis, independent candidate for Howard County executive. All over the county, young adults who can't vote still are looking for ways to improve their community through politics, volunteering on local campaigns across the political spectrum.

The profile of a voter in Baltimore is roughly this: a black woman of about 40, a churchgoer with a decent job. Black men, whether professionals or "brothers on the corner," often aren't in the picture. Many don't see why they should vote - or they're disqualified by virtue of involvement with the criminal justice system. These are rough approximations of reality, but they are close enough to the truth for political purposes. And the implications are troubling, to say the least. An important part of the black community offers political leaders no reason to care about or address its concerns.