Only a small minority of the more than hundreds of thousands of people who requested tickets from Maryland’s congressional offices will be permitted to attend the Tuesday’s inauguration for President-elect Barack Obama in Washington D.C.
The offices mainly used a lottery system with random drawings to determine the winners because of the overwhelming demand for this historic event. Nationwide, about 240,000 tickets were distributed.
» The Marylanders who received inauguration tickets didn’t need to meet any criteria other than verifying their identify with a signature. No background checks were necessary.
» Those attending the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama must individually pass through security screening checkpoints, including bag inspections, before entering the National Mall, the ticketed seating at the U.S. Capitol and the White House viewing areas.
» Law enforcement will confiscate weapons of any kind, aerosols, packages, coolers, thermal or glass containers, backpacks, laser pointers, animals other than service dogs, bicycles and any other potential safety hazards.
» The public and ticketed guests should expect long lines beginning at 7 a.m. at all 13 entrances to the Inaugural Parade.
» Guests may carry signs that are no larger than 3 feet wide or 20 feet long and made out of cardboard, poster board or cloth. The signs cannot be supported by sticks or poles.
» Mobility aids, such as canes, walkers, wheelchairs and scooters, are allowed.
» Sections of the National Mall will be open to the public and do not require tickets. Televisions and speakers also are being placed throughout the Mall so everybody can see the event.
» A list of inauguration viewings and other events in the Baltimore region will be published Thursday in Pan and Praise in The Examiner.
— Carolyn Peirce
“We had a lottery — We had less than 400 to give out,” said Susan Sullam, communications director for Sen. Ben Cardin.
Cardin’s office, for instance, received between 150,000 and 200,000 individual ticket requests. The office needed to process about 60,000 e-mails from residents requesting multiple tickets.
The ticket-holders and those who were not selected will be contacted by Cardin’s office as well as Sen. Barbara Mikulski’s office, which received about 60,000 requests and will distribute about 300 tickets through its lottery.
“They came through all methods — some called, some came through snail mail — But the bulk of them came online through e-mail,” said Rachel MacKnight, communications director for Mikulski.
About 20,000 requests were filed through U.S. Rep. Elijah Cumming’s office.
“We have 125 set aside for longtime supporters who were onboard for Obama back in 2007,” said Jennifer kohl, spokeswoman for Cummings, who added that a lottery will be used to determine the recipients of the nearly 75 remaining tickets this week.
U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes’ office received requests for more than 14,000 tickets, but was allocated less than 200, said MaKeda Scott, communications director for Sarbanes.
Even before he was sworn in as a U.S. representative Jan. 6, Frank Kratovil Jr. received thousands of requests for inauguration tickets, said his spokesman Frank Lawlor.
“We still had people coming to our campaign Web site saying, ‘Can we get tickets?'” he said.
Of the nearly 200 tickets Kratovil received, he “took some aside some for campaign volunteers who had worked tirelessly,” and the rest were placed in a lottery, Lawlor said.
“Hopefully people weren’t too upset, but we think that was the best way to do it,” he said.
Between 5,000 and 6,000 requests poured into U.S. Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger’s office. The winners were selected on a first-come, first-serve basis as well as from a lottery, said his spokeswoman Heather Moleno.
“We tried to be fair. We disappoint more people than we make happy,” she said.
For a downloadable map of the inauguration grounds you can print out and take with you, click here.
