Write In

Don Allensworth, who lost the Democratic nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in the primary, has announced that he is a write-in candidate for the 6th District congressional seat.The Washington countian has never held public office. He finished a distant second behind Sen.Barbara Mikulski March 3.He said he will offer voters a "moderate" choice.State Del. Thomas H. Hattery, D-Frederick, ousted seven-term incumbent Beverly B.Byron to win the Democratic nomination for the 6th District seat. Roscoe G. Bartlett, a retired teacher and researcher from Frederick County, won the Republican nomination.

Chestertown physician John LaFerla, who waged a write-in campaign for the First Congressional District last fall after the withdrawal of Democratic primary winner Wendy Rosen, is planning another run for the seat. LaFerla said he would file papers in Annapolis Wednesday for the 2014 Democratic primary in the First, now represented by second-term Republican Rep. Andy Harris. LaFerla lost the 2012 primary to Rosen by 57 votes last April, but returned to the race in September after Rosen withdrew amid allegations she had violated election law by voting in two states at once.

In late 1989, former Annapolis Mayor Dennis M. Callahan abandoned a write-in campaign for mayor after the city board of elections ruled that stickers bearing candidates' names couldn't be used because they would jam voting machines.Now the Maryland Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is contending that the stickers wouldn't havebeen a problem.In a letter to City Clerk Patty Bembe dated Dec. 17, ACLU special projects attorney Carl Gabel said the city's voting machines would have accepted the stickers if they were smaller than 1 inches long and inch high -- the size of the opening on the machines for write-invotes.

An Anne Arundel County councilman has asked prosecutors to investigate perjury allegations involving five police officers caught up in a lawsuit against County Executive John R. Leopold. In a letter sent this week, Councilman Jamie Benoit also demanded an investigation from newly appointed Police Chief Larry W. Tolliver into whether the department properly vetted a complaint about an officer accused of lying. "Our department is about to break under the weight of repeated scandals," Benoit wrote.

Carroll State's Attorney Thomas E. Hickman, rebuffed by Republicans in his bid for the GOP nod in last week's primary, announced yesterday that he will mount a write-in campaign for a sixth term as the county's top prosecutor."

Unhappy with politics as usual, some creative Marylanders expressed their disgust during last November's election by writing in the names of candidates they apparently felt could not do worse.For offices high and low, they voted for Larry the Cable Guy; Biggie Smalls; Judge Wapner; the abortion clinic bombing suspect, Eric Rudolph; home run hitter Albert Belle; and Daffy Duck.For better or worse, protests of the unofficial write-in variety have been written off -- unreported by election officials.

A last-minute write-in campaign, designed to show displeasure with current city officials, garnered 33 mayoral votes for former Councilman Thomas Eckard in Monday's Westminster election.Mr. Eckard, the owner of Eckard's Wallpaper and Paint on Liberty Street, said Monday that he supported the write-in campaign "to send a signal to City Hall that all is not well."Campaign organizers, whom he declined to name, were concerned about a lack of open communication among the council, mayor and public, he said.

ROCKVILLE -- Neal Potter, a 75-year-old county councilman, defeated incumbent Sidney Kramer yesterday for the second time in as many months to win election as Montgomery County executive.Mr. Kramer, a millionaire businessman and developer whom Mr. Potter bested in the September primary, mounted a write-in campaign that attracted only about 20 percent of the vote to Mr. Potter's 61 percent.Republican businessman Albert Ceccone tried to exploit the Democratic split, but he fell far short.Mr.

In a miniature version of Florida's 2000 election debacle, a Mount Airy resident, angry over counting practices in last week's mayoral election, has sent a protest letter to the town's Board of Elections asking that votes for defeated write-in candidate James S. Holt be recounted. Officially, Holt lost to incumbent Mayor Gerald R. Johnson, 492-311. But Holt's supporters claim the Board of Elections failed to count 259 ballots, many of which contained only Holt's last name. The town's Board of Elections had told Holt ahead of time that it would accept six variations of his name - but not just "Holt."

CONCORD, N.H. -- A campaign to persuade voters to write in the name of Gov. Mario M. Cuomo of New York has added a fresh -- and potentially significant -- variable to the Democratic presidential primary contest here.At the least, the movement could threaten the continued viability of two or three of the active candidates whose names are on the ballot if they end up running behind an inactive write-in candidate after they have spent months on personal campaigning and building their organizations.

The Maryland Democratic Party this week said it will back a write-in candidate challenging Republican U.S. Rep. Andy Harris in Maryland's 1st Congressional District - which includes much of Carroll County - after voter fraud allegations ended the previous Democratic candidate's bid. The party had scrambled for a replacement since its primary winner Wendy Rosen had to drop out of the race on Sept. 10, after confirming reports that she had voted in two different states in more than one election.

The Maryland Democratic Party has endorsed the write-in candidacy of Eastern Shore physician John LaFerla to challenge freshman Republican Rep. Andy Harris in the 1 st Congressional District. “Dr. LaFerla has resounding grassroots support and the full confidence of the Party's Executive Committee and Democratic leaders,” Democratic State Chairwoman Yvette Lewis said in a statement Monday. LaFerla replaces Wendy Rosen, who won a party primary in April but withdrew from the race last week amid allegations that she was registered and had voted in two states in 2006 and 2008.

John LaFerla, the Chestertown physician who narrowly lost the Democratic primary in the 1st Congressional District in April, has won the party's support to challenge Republican Rep. Andy Harris as a write-in candidate, he said Friday. LaFerla, 63, enters the race after primary winner Wendy Rosen withdrew this week amid allegations that she was registered and had voted in Maryland and Florida. Her name will remain on the Nov. 6 ballot because the deadline to remove it has passed. LaFerla said the 12 Democratic central committees in the 1st District, which includes the Eastern Shore and parts of Baltimore, Harford, Carroll and Cecil counties, had voted to support him. "We're ready to fight for every vote in all 12 counties," he said in a statement.

As a child, Kathryn Manion used to sit on her father's lap late into the evenings and read with him. That, said her father, Jim Manion, didn't last long. "She quickly began to read on her own," he said, adding jokingly, "I guess we weren't reading fast enough. " Not nearly. Tuesday night in New York City, Washington College senior and Clarksville native Kathryn Manion received Washington College's Sophie Kerr Prize for her body of short stories and other creative work. At more than $58,000 this year, it is considered the most lucrative undergraduate literary award in the country.

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.

At a time when campaigns in Baltimore usually are over, candidates in two City Council races are spending thousands of dollars battling to win the Nov. 8 general election. In East Baltimore's 13th District, Councilman Warren Branch has spent more than $33,000 since the Sept. 13 primary defending his seat from write-in challenger Shannon Sneed, who lost to him by 43 votes. The money is more than the $26,000 Branch spent in the entire year before the primary, according to campaign finance reports filed Friday and made public Monday.

George W. Murphy III, a Green Party candidate for county commissioner, has been removed from the November ballot because he has failed to obtain the required number of signatures. Murphy fell 18 names short of the necessary 840 - 1 percent of Carroll's registered voters in June, according to the county Board of Elections. As of Friday, the number of registered voters had climbed to 85,000. Rather than be the first candidate to drop out of the race, Murphy said he would continue to campaign as a write-in.

SAN DIEGO - Now is the season of discontent among activists, politicians and City Hall watchers. The tallying of votes from last week's mayoral election continues amid lawsuits aimed at blocking write-in candidate Councilwoman Donna Frye from defeating incumbent Dick Murphy. The city's labor unions are crying foul. Unionists accuse the establishment of attempting to steal the election from Frye, a labor-friendly Democrat and co-owner, with her surfer husband, of a surf shop. But business leaders are in various stages of dread over the prospect of Frye becoming mayor.

City Councilman Warren Branch knows that the pavement in front of Lucinda Saunders' East Baltimore rowhouse is cracked and that the 75-year-old retiree can't afford a $300 fine from the city. Branch is familiar with her plight because he was in Saunders' neighborhood campaigning. He returned a few days later with a city inspector, and they quickly identified the cause of the crack - a water pipe beneath the sidewalk. By the time they left, Branch had arranged not just for the elimination of the sidewalk fine, but also the halving of Saunders' errant water bill and the vetting of her taxes for missed credits.