Vote early (and often)!

Your vote has a bigger impact in local and midterm elections. There are lots of important issues that affect your daily life. Don't wait for 2012!


Registration information here. Most states require you to register in October for November elections. Check your state's rules here.


Get your absentee ballot - information here.

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Early voting in Maryland - information

I found it really disappointing that the County is doing such a lousy job getting out information about early voting. The latest Paperless Airplane covers voter registration, which expired in August, not the ongoing primary. Primary voting information is not an option on the menu at 240-777-8683 (VOTE), although you have to take the extra time to listen to them assure you that the options are updated often so you should wait and listen to them all each time (press 0).
It's not on the website for the Silver Spring Center, one of five early voting spots: http://www.silverspringcenter.com/voter.htm

Thank goodness I got the call from My Representative Chris Van Hollen telling me about it.

Here is the top-sectret brochure. http://www.elections.state.md.us/documents/Final_English_Spanish%20Brochure.pdf

Even the Washington Post is not helping, hiding it under the cute but hard to find headline, "early bird specials." Here is the story. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090305866.html

The hours are 10am-8pm

If you care about the Chesapeake Bay, vote for Roger Manno. If you care about honesty and integrity, vote for Martin OMalley, not Robert Ehrlich.

New Legislators - Manno is excellent, Elrich not a "people person"

In Montgomery County our district is represented by legislators in their first terms, including a state legislator and an at-large councilman. Roger Manno has a 100% pro-environmental rating by the Maryland League of Conservation Voters and Environment Maryland. He received a perfect environmental score for the 2008 Legislative Session. This is Manno's second straight year scoring 100%, making him one of only five sitting Delegates in Maryland with a perfect 100% lifetime environmental rating. I was even more impressed when I called his office during the July 4th Holiday weekend and my call was answered by ... Delegate Manno! We spent 20 minutes talking about how to Save the Chesapeake Bay. His attention and passion were evident throughout the conversation, and his staff contact called me back within a few minutes to follow up. As soon as I got home, I broke out my credit cards and donated to him. Call him and talk to him, and I'm sure you will, too.

On the other hand, I met Marc Elrich at one of his fundraisers when he was running for the seat he won, an at-large Council member in Montgomery County. I paid the entrance fee to the fundraiser, and went to shake his hand and introduce myself. He said he didn't have time to meet me - his sister was visiting. "What?" I said to his retreating back as he hustled away. "Don't you have her vote?" After the election, I saw him at a Women's conference at the U MD campus in Shady Grove. Hundreds of women were there. He leaned on the back wall and then turned his back on the attendees. I snapped a shot, and that's him, circled, the shoulder in the blue shirt, ignoring dozens of constituents in line and having a tete-a-tete with someone he already knows.

It's not just annoying that he avoids voters even when requesting donations. His signature proposal so far has been to work to combine the activities of the County Recreation Department with other programs. The plan might save money, but the biggest cost is the confusion and unrest now created by the proposal for change without a plan for making the change happen.

"OPPONENTS ARE LESS concerned with the territorial dispute between the departments than with the fear that the potential assumption of responsibility for the county’s parks by the Department of Recreation would threaten the integrity and preservation of parkland.

A joint letter signed by representatives of the Audubon Naturalist Society, the West Montgomery County Citizens Association and the Neighbors of Northwest Branch and distributed to media outlets on Friday, March 6 warned that "[r]ecreation [department] contractors are not obliged to include a conservation or stewardship message. The Department itself does not have any track record for environmental stewardship." The letter urged that no action be taken by the Council or the PHED committee before a public hearing on the matter could be scheduled to obtain input from county residents."

MS 13 comes to downtown Silver Spring and Montgomery Blair HIgh

The Tai Lam memorial spot in downtown Silver Spring on Sunday evening.

Arrest made in murder of Tai Lam.
County police arrest Takoma Park man
By Kiera Zitelman, Online Editor-in-Chief 11/08/2008

See also the stories here and here.

Around 7 p.m. on Friday, Montgomery County police arrested Hector Mauricio Hernandez, 20, of Takoma Park, for the murder of Blair freshman Tai Lam, according to Lieutenant Robert McCullagh. Detectives obtained a warrant for first degree murder. Hernandez is a member of the MS-13 gang, though police are still investigating whether gang involvement played a role in the shooting. He is being held without bond.

Lam, 14, and two others, 14 and 15, boarded a Ride On bus in Silver Spring with a large group of friends on Nov. 2. The three boys were shot around 11 p.m. after a verbal exchange with a group of four to five older men. When the bus stopped at Arliss Street and Piney Branch Road, the older group exited the bus. One of them fired into the back of the bus, hitting Lam and the two other boys, who attend Blair and Northwood High School.

The nature of the verbal exchange is still under investigation. "For unknown reasons...as one of those subjects was getting off, he turned and fired a handgun from the area of the rear door of the bus into the bus striking the three teens," according to a police press release. "That subject has been identified as Hernandez."

Lam died later that night, while the other boys were taken to Georgetown University MedStar Hospital in critical condition. Both have since been released and are recovering from their injuries.

Police are still searching for others on the bus and expect to make more arrests, according to McCullagh. "We are still looking for associates as witnesses or defendants," he said.

Hernandez will be brought before a grand jury for indictment, and the next step would be a Montgomery County circuit court trial. "They will eventually stand trial in Montgomery County for murder," McCullagh said.

Police are asking anyone with information related to the case to call (240) 773-5070. Callers may remain anonymous.

Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) is bad news for Maryland and for troops

BRAC concentrates traffic, funding headaches while removing our soldiers from communities around the country

• GAO: Military Base Realignments and Closures: Estimated Costs Have Increased and Estimated Savings Have Decreased, by Brian J. Lepore, director, defense capabilities and management, before the Subcommittee on Readiness, House Committee on Armed Services. GAO-08-341T, December 12. Highlights (pdf)
  
• Gazette: Navy Med expansion has issues: World-class medical center could be marred by traffic and unsafe intersections while money for potential fixes is uncertain
  
• WaPo: Naval Hospital Patients to Double: Move From Walter Reed to Bethesda Could Worsen Traffic, Add $70 Million in [unpaid] Road Work.
  

Resources for info:

• MDOT & BRAC
  
• Paying for BRAC (WaPo)
  
• Official BRAC - Home Page (MD); Montgomery County
  
• (Obsolete) State report (pdf)