Democrats performed better in early voting than Republicans despite subpar turnouts in Montgomery County and Baltimore City.
Here is a chart contrasting voter registration and early voting percentages by party.
The Republicans' early voting matched their voter registration percentage. The Democrats beat their registration percentage by 7.5 points.
One reason for the Democrats' advantage would be if their party organizations in their three strongholds - Baltimore City and Montgomery and Prince George's Counties - aggressively turned out early votes. But that has not been the case. Here is a chart contrasting voter registration and early voting percentages by county.
Prince George's County was the only jurisdiction in the Democrats' Big Three to beat their registration percentage in early voting. Both Baltimore and MoCo, and the Big Three together, lagged.
So the Democrats beat the GOP in early voting mostly by relying on party members outside their strongholds. That should be an encouraging sign for Martin O'Malley.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Democrats Lead in Early Voting - Without MoCo and Baltimore
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
The GOP’s Lost Opportunity
First there were the bank bailouts. Next there was cap and trade. Next there was the government’s takeover of General Motors. And then came health care. And the tea parties. And rising numbers of endangered Democrats in Congress. And the much-hyped return of former Governor Bob Ehrlich to run in a rematch against Martin O’Malley. On top of all of that, there is the wretched state of the economy. It has been a LONG time since the Republicans have had this much to work with. So you would think that the Maryland GOP would be seeing lots of growth, right?
You’d be wrong. The Maryland Republican Party is shrinking.
Following are voter registration counts by party as of the last five general elections, plus March 2010.
Since the election of Barack Obama as President and all of the ensuing events above, the Democrats have lost 13,801 registered voters, or 0.7% of their party. The Republicans have lost 24,292 registered voters, or 2.6% of their party. All others, most of whom are unaffiliated voters, have grown by 13,882 (2.5%).
Voter registration is driven by two things: presidential elections and presidential performance. Below are comparative counts by party since 2000.
Three spikes in all categories are obvious: the 2000, 2004 and 2008 general elections. But there are also smaller changes that occur in the interims. For example, the Democrats added an average 11,364 voters per month between November 2007 and August 2008 before adding 35,549 voters in September 2008 and 91,167 in October 2008. Dissatisfaction with George W. Bush helped Maryland Democrats build their party. But dissatisfaction with Barack Obama has not helped Maryland Republicans build theirs.
As a result, the GOP’s percentage of registered voters is the lowest in at least ten years. (The State Board of Elections’ published monthly data goes back only through 2000.) Their registration percentage has slid from a recent high of 30.1% in May 2004 to 26.5% in March 2010.
If Obama’s problems are boosting anyone’s numbers, it may be small parties and unaffiliated voters. In January 2000, there were 2.38 Republicans for every one of these voters. In March 2010, there were 1.58 Republicans for every one of these voters.
Much has been written about the Maryland GOP’s failure to raise money, which is certainly a problem. The state party reported $142.56 on hand in state funds in January and $28,144 on hand in federal funds at the end of March. But the party’s failure to grow in the face of such grand opportunity may be an even bigger problem. When will another Great Recession emerge? When will a conservative movement resembling the Tea Party spontaneously form again?
If the GOP cannot grow under these conditions, when will it ever grow?
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Let’s Improve the Election Process
By Marc Korman.
The General Assembly has some major and controversial issues to deal with involving elections: Will the state pass legislation in response to Citizens United changing the rules for corporate campaign contributions? When will optical scan voting systems be in place to ensure a paper trail? Will Senate President Mike Miller follow through on his deal for public campaign financing from the 2009 session? All these are important, but there is a quick and easy improvement the General Assembly can make to our system of elections: pass SB 292/HB 217 immediately.
Introduced by Jamie Raskin in the Senate and Jon Cardin in the House, the legislation as amended would do two things.
First, it would allow individuals to register to vote at age 16. Of course, they would still not be able to vote in a General Election until they are 18, but their registration forms would be processed and held by the Board of Elections until they are eligible. The change makes sense because thanks to the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (often referred to as Motor Voter), people applying for their drivers’ licenses are given an opportunity to register to vote. 16 is a time of great responsibility for a person and it is appropriate that on that big trip to the MVA to get their license, 16 year olds are offered a chance to register to vote and become more involved citizens. If a 16 year old does not want to register or is not interested, that’s okay too. No one makes them fill out the form.
The State Board of Elections has indicated that these pre-registrations can be kept separate from the voter file, so those who are registered but still not eligible to vote will not be solicited by candidates or campaigns due to their pre-registration and will maintain their privacy.
Second, the bill standardizes the dates for new voters to register and preexisting registrants to change their party. I wrote about this issue previously but the basic idea is that a first time Maryland voter has until about three weeks before an election to register. But someone already registered without a party or in one party who wants to alter that registration to participate in a primary must do so three months before the election, long before most voters even realize there is an election. SB 292/HB 217 would allow preexisting registrants to change their party status up to three weeks prior to the election, the same as new registrants. Delegate Ivey’s freestanding bill on the issue passed unanimously in 2009 but did not move forward in the Senate.
HB 217 passed the House of Delegates 97-43. The major fight involved whether parental consent should be required for 16 year olds to pre-register with the House rejecting that requirement. I think that was the right outcome because whether or not to register to vote is a personal choice. If we trust 16 year olds on our roads, we should trust them to make the choice to register to vote. And of course, they can always change their minds later and alter their registration, which the second part of the legislation will make even easier.
Unfortunately, the bill is bottled up on the Senate side in committee. That committee chair, Joan Carter Conway from Baltimore, should let the bill out and on to the floor. We may not be able to solve some of the broader issues affecting our election system in 2010, but we can easily address these relatively simple but important election reforms. They should head to the Governor’s desk before the General Assembly adjourns for 2010.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Is Saqib Ali Buying New Democrats?
Yes, yes, we know some of you are asking us whether we plan on re-naming this blog “Saqib Politics Watch.” But this is not just another Facebook-related post. Read on.
On July 21, the Montgomery County Young Democrats sent out the following mass email which included a voter registration message from Delegate Saqib Ali (D-39):
HELP DELEGATE SAQIB ALI REGISTER DEMOCRATS
Dear Young Dems,
I’m looking for some volunteers who are willing to do voter registration of specifically targetted people who live in Gaithersburg/Germantown/Montgomery Village/North Potomac area.
The Prerequistes for the tasks are:
Volunteers have access to the internet.
Volunteers have cellphone/text message access.
Volunteers can make personal trips to Gaithersburg/Germantown area homes if neccessary.
Volunteers be willing to talk on the phone to strangers to persuade them to register to vote for Dems. Whatever it takes! :)
I have identified about 500-800 people in my district who are likely sympathetic, but are not registered as Dems. Unless they are registered Democrats, they cannot of course vote in the Democratic Primary Election in September 2010. Many of them are my personal friends/acquaintance. Many of these people are new Americans or racial/ethnic/religious minorities.
So we sometimes have to “hunt down” these people and get them to fill the form. It might require multiple phone calls/emails and even personal home visits!! I’m very happy to pay the registrar a whopping $5 for every person on this list that can be flipped to Democrat. We can make it a competitive thing :)
All the personal info of these “targets” is stored in an online Google spreadsheet that is routinely updated by numerous other volunteers concurrently from their own homes in their own free time. So we don’t actually meet together at any one place or time. I’m happy to share this spreadsheet out to interested volunteers. I also have set up a Google Group (ie: Email list where all the volunteers share their info/activity).
- Saqib
CONTACT SAQIB AT: DELEGATE@SAQIBALI.ORG TO VOLUNTEER
Here’s the problem: § 3-205 of Maryland election law states that voter registration volunteers cannot “receive any form of compensation, including bonuses, that is based on the number of voter registration applications collected.”
Delegate Ali must have learned of this prohibition. He sent out a second message in a Montgomery County Young Democrats email on July 28 stating:
HELP DELEGATE SAQIB ALI REGISTER DEMOCRATS
Dear Young Dems,
I’m looking for some volunteers who are willing to do voter registration of specifically targetted people who live in Gaithersburg/Germantown/Montgomery Village/North Potomac area.
The Prerequistes for the tasks are:
Volunteers have access to the internet.
Volunteers have cellphone/text message access
Volunteers can make personal trips to Gaithersburg/Germantown area homes if neccessary.
Volunteers be willing to talk on the phone to strangers to persuade them to register to vote for Dems. Whatever it takes! :)
I have identified about 500-800 people in my district who are likely sympathetic, but are not registered as Dems. Unless they are registered Democrats, they cannot of course vote in the Democratic Primary Election in September 2010. Many of them are my personal friends/acquaintance. Many of these people are new Americans or racial/ethnic/religious minorities.
So we sometimes have to “hunt down” these people and get them to fill the form. It might require multiple phone calls/emails and even personal home visits!!
All the personal info of these “targets” is stored in an online Google spreadsheet that is routinely updated by numerous other volunteers concurrently from their own homes in their own free time. So we don’t actually meet together at any one place or time. I’m happy to share this spreadsheet out to interested volunteers. I also have set up a Google Group (ie: Email list where all the volunteers share their info/activity).
- Saqib
CONTACT SAQIB AT: DELEGATE@SAQIBALI.ORG TO VOLUNTEER
PLEASE NOTE: NO COMPENSATION IS BEING OFFERED FOR PARTICIPATING IN THIS PROJECT... JUST THE SATISFACTION OF BRINGING MORE AMERICAN CITIZENS INTO THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS
None of the above establishes that Delegate Ali actually paid anyone for voter registrations, but the State Board of Elections may want to find out. As for Delegate Ali himself, well... his enemies are watching.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Either People Read This Blog or The World Is Full of Great Ideas
By Marc Korman.
I woke up this past Saturday morning to two good pieces of news on the policy front. Either folks in Annapolis are reading this blog or they have had some of the same great ideas we have discussed here. Either way, these two developments left me smiling.
Party Change Deadline
On Friday, the Maryland House of Delegates passed HB 589, Delegate Jolene Ivey’s bill harmonizing voter registration deadlines for new registrants and those changing parties. We raised the same issue in a post last September, which discussed the problem in the law which requires current registrants changing or selecting a party for the first time to do so three months before the election, while the deadline for entirely new registrants is just three weeks before the election.
The Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee endorsed Ivey’s bill and one of our members, Karla Walker from District 20, testified on its behalf. Common Cause also testified in support. The bill passed the House unanimously and now heads over to the Senate. The bill was not cross-filed, but hopefully its broad support in the House will mean a smooth ride in the other chamber.
Prince George’s Soccer Stadium
Even better, the Washington Post ran an article on the ill conceived plan to bring DC United to Prince George’s County. We discussed the plan, which uses state money to fund stadium construction, in a previous post. The Post article demonstrated some reluctance in the plan by its most likely supporters, Prince George’s legislators. Delegates Dereck Davis and Joanna Benson both expressed concern with the cost. The Gazette also recently covered the “tepid reception” for the proposal from the Prince George’s County Council. Hopefully, others share their good sense and the General Assembly will not approve the financing.
Compared to some of the major issues before the General Assembly such as the budget, gay rights, and the death penalty, the two issues above are small ball. But a lot of the legislature’s impact comes from the cumulative effect of the small actions, or in some cases inaction, as discussed above.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Registration Deadlines
By Marc Korman.
Maryland is one of twenty-six states with closed primaries, meaning primaries are only open to those who register with the party. Some state parties in closed primary states choose to open their primaries, but it is not required by law. As a closed primary state, voters in Maryland must be registered with a political party to vote in its primary. Meaning if you wanted to weigh in on Clinton versus Obama back in February, you had to be a registered Democrat. To weigh in on McCain versus Huckabee, you had to be a registered Republican. In Maryland, voters can either register with a political party or be unaffiliated. If a voter changes their mind in the future and decides to change or select parties, they may find an unexpected roadblock in their path.
Maryland’s 2008 presidential primary was February 12, 2008. The registration deadline was three weeks prior to the election. But, if you are already registered and simply want to change or select a party, your deadline was on November 19, 2007, about twelve weeks before the election. That means if a voter did not plan well ahead of time to register with a party, they are out of luck. Unfortunately, most voters were not thinking about the Democratic primary back in November of 2007. As I was registering voters before the state’s Democratic primary, I met many unaffiliated voters who were getting excited about the primaries due to the increasing news coverage, but were unable to participate in the primary as a result of the early deadline. The problem is especially prevalent among young people, who I find are less inclined to affiliate with a political party.
State law sets the early deadline for party affiliation change. Voters may change other information on their registrations, such as their address, up to the registration deadline. Maryland is not alone in the strange timing provision. I did not survey every state, but Delaware had a party affiliation change deadline of October 31, 2007, a registration deadline of January 12, 2008, and its election on February 5, 2008. Virginia does not require voters to select parties. California has no alternate deadline for party affiliation changes.
Last week, I heard from Stan Statland, the President of the Montgomery County Board of Elections, at a Bethesda-Chevy Chase Democratic Club breakfast. I asked Mr. Statland about the differing deadlines. He explained that the different deadlines were to help the State Board of Elections manage the amount of data entry and changes required leading up to the election.
Mr. Statland’s explanation is legitimate and I do not doubt that the State Board of Elections could use more resources. However, the amount of party affiliation changes is probably fairly small and the state should make that deadline match the overall registration deadline.
States such as Minnesota and Wisconsin have figured out how to have same day voter registration, a phenomenon that makes voting more accessible but also gave us Governor Jesse Ventura. Surely, Maryland’s Board of Elections can handle the much smaller administrative burden of allowing voters to change their affiliation during the same period of time they can change their address or a new voter can register.
Some may argue that allowing a later party affiliation could bring “Operation Chaos,” Rush Limbaugh’s effort to subvert the Democratic primaries by having Republicans vote in them, to Maryland. Even if Mr. Limbaugh’s recent efforts were successful, the current voter registration deadline of three weeks before the election would put a limit on partisan manipulation. More importantly, it would open the primaries to more voters who want to participate in a constructive, not chaotic, way. If “Operation Chaos” concern is really that high, then the deadline change could only apply to unaffiliated voters who select a party and not members of other parties.
I hope our legislators will take a look at the deadline discrepancy next session, prior to the 2010 election cycle. Others may want to go farther than I am suggesting and make Maryland’s primaries open or allow same day registration. I would be happy to see a debate on these issues, but the narrow issue presented here can be dealt with easily and should be done, regardless of the broader changes that may also be considered.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Raskin Leads Voting Rights Fight for 17-Year Olds
Sen. Jamie Raskin's effort to restore the right of 17-year olds to vote in primaries if they will be 18 by the date of the general election appears to have succeeded. As reported in the Washington Post, Attorney General Doug Gansler has reversed a decision of his staff interpreting a recent Court of Appeals decision in a contrary manner.
AG Gansler made the right call. Although the government has the right to regulate selected activities of political parties, the right to freedom of association in the First Amendment protects the right of parties to determine most aspects of their own activities (unless they conflict with protections elsewhere in the Constitution, particularly those on discrimination). Both Democrats and Republicans wanted to include 17-year olds who would turn 18 by Election Day, and the government has no compelling reason to overrule them.
However, don't expect a massive increase in voter turnout as a result.
According to the Washington Post article:Deputy Elections Administrator Ross Goldstein said that 2,308 17-year-olds voted in the 2004 Maryland primary and that 3,800 have registered to vote this year.
Remember that turnout in primaries is small and people are more likely to vote as they age. Still, even if the turnout is small, I don't see any harm in letting 17-year olds vote in the primary if they'll be 18 by the general election. Indeed, many democratic nations engage in efforts to make sure that every eligible citizen is on the voting rolls without imposing a registration requirement.
Sen. Jamie Raskin was a guest on the Kojo Nnamdi show. You can listen to the recording of the broadcast to learn more about the controversy.
