Election officials in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties say the problems that plagued the 2006 primary elections will not reoccur during next month’s balloting.
In the 2006 primary, there were problems with long lines at Prince George’s County polls, which sometimes involved voters waiting for hours to cast ballots, according to representatives from the Maryland Attorney General’s Office.
Alisha Alexander, elections administrator for Prince George’s County, said there were times in 2006 when more than 4,000 registered voters were assigned to a specific polling place. Officials have since divided locations and created new voting sites so no more than 3,000 voters go to each location.
“The population growth in Prince George’s has increased drastically and we’ve taken measures to mediate the number of registrants at each polling place,” Alexander said.
Montgomery County’s 2006 primary had problems with supplies not being delivered on time to some polling sites.
Margie Rohrer, spokeswoman for the Montgomery County Board of Elections, said paper ballots were made available but that some people opted to leave anyway.
“It had never happened before and it will probably never happen again,” Rohrer said.
Officials from both jurisdictions say the problems that plagued the 2006 primaries were fixed by the time of the 2006 general election.
Carl Snowden, director of the Maryland attorney general’s civil rights division, said a task force is also investigating deceptive, misleading campaign fliers intended to keep people awayfrom the polls on election days in Prince George’s County and areas of Baltimore in 2006.
“There were fliers telling people that if they were guilty of infractions like not paying parking tickets or child support that they couldn’t vote, which is definitely not true, and others that told people the elections were on a Thursday instead of a Tuesday,” Snowden said. “We think it was done with the intent to deliberately mislead people, which is certainly distressing.”
Baltimore Del. Sandy Rosenberg has introduced a Voters Rights Protection Act of 2008 in this year’s legislative session, which he says is intended to “address dirty tricks” involving campaign literature that occurred in 2006.
“My bill would give you the authority to go to court and get an injunction if you have reasonable cause to believe that somebody is intending to violate election law,” Rosenberg said, adding he wants to stop the spread of misinformation before it is in the hands of voters since current law requires the literature be disseminated before a violation can occur.
At a glance
Today is the last day for Montgomery and Prince George’s County residents to register to vote in the Feb. 12 primary
» For more information, Prince George’s residents should call 301-430-8020 or visit www.co.pg.md.gov.
» For more information, Montgomery residents should call 240-777-VOTE (8683) or go to www.777vote.org.
