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Politics

Jan. 6 Hearing: Raskin Leads Questioning, Harris Involvement in White House Planning Meeting Revealed

The U.S. House panel investigating Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results described Tuesday how the president explicitly called on his supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, for a “wild” protest — resulting in an insurrection. Trump exerted extraordinary influence over the mob, who marched to the Capitol on his orders and undertook the violent attack, testimony showed. Many dispersed only when Trump asked them to do so, hours after mayhem broke out.

Hundreds of Baltimore City voters placed in wrong district following state redistricting

When Kirsten Johnson went to vote on East Cold Spring Lane on Friday during Maryland’s seven-day early voting period, things didn’t go as she had planned. A Roland Park resident since 2007, Johnson had received mailings from the Baltimore City Board of Elections informing her she lived in Maryland’s 41st legislative district, but a poll worker handed her a ballot for District 40. “I said, ‘Excuse me, there’s been a mistake,’” she recalled. The volunteer directed her back to the check-in table, where she showed more election volunteers her voter ID card and sample ballot, mailed to her by election officials, that all put her in District 41.

Baltimore County’s deputy admin officer to resign, replaced by former city sanitation regulator, prosecutor

Deputy Administrative Officer Drew Vetter is leaving the Baltimore County executive suite, the county announced Tuesday, and it has already found his successor. Rebecca Young is leaving her post as head of the Baltimore City Environmental Control Board, where she supervised 13 staffers with a more than $1.5 million budget, to take the reins from Vetter, whose last day with the county is July 15, according to a news release Young, a Dundalk native, “brings a wealth a management experience and a deep knowledge of public safety issues and challenges to her new role,” County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. said in a statement.

Mosby’s Attorneys File Motion To Dismiss 2 Charges

Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s defense filed a motion last week asking for perjury charges against her to be dropped, saying Mosby did not deceive anyone when she self-certified she suffered “adverse financial consequences” during the COVID-19 pandemic. At issue is the the $40,000 and $50,000 prosecutors Mosby withdrew from her city retirement account to purchase two Florida properties. A provision of the CARES Act waived penalties on withdrawals for people who were adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Election mail envelope
Maryland primary results may be delayed as mail-in votes are counted

Election results in tight races are likely to come days after Maryland’s July 19 primary as a pandemic-era shift to mail-in voting runs up against the state’s prohibition against counting ballots early, officials warn. Maryland regulations prevent election workers from even starting to count these mail-in votes — which could amount to a significant portion of the total — until the Thursday after Election Day. “Be patient,” advised William G. Voelp, chairman of the Maryland State Board of Elections, whose members are appointed by the governor. “Every legal vote will be counted, and then the state board of elections will certify based on not more than and not less than every legal vote being counted.”

Vote pin back buttons
Maryland’s early voting turnout lags behind 2018, but unreturned mail-in ballots could make or break 2022 turnout

At the midpoint, Maryland has seen a decrease in voters taking advantage of early voting so far in 2022, but what that means for overall turnout remains up in the air with hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots yet to be cast. In the first four days of early voting, 58,715 Marylanders cast their ballots at early voting centers across the state — less than 2% of all eligible active voters. That’s almost 23,000 fewer voters than at the same point in the process in 2018, the state’s most recent gubernatorial primary. That year one-quarter of all votes were cast by early voters.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Candidates for Baltimore County school board have varying viewpoints on important education issues

The fractious Baltimore County school board could look a lot different following an election season that begins with three primaries this month. The board now has 12 members, but only Board Chair Julie Henn and Vice Chair Rod McMillion are certain to return. Four appointed members could leave after their terms expire in December, and three other seats will be on the July 19 primary ballot.

Maryland’s 4th Congressional District primary features influential Prince George’s Democrats

This isn’t their first rodeo. Both Donna Edwards and Glenn Ivey, each Prince George’s County heavyweights, have led their share of Maryland political campaigns, even squaring off against each other once before. Edwards, who represented the 4th District from 2008-2017 as Maryland’s first Black congresswoman, also ran for a U.S. Senate seat in a nationally watched race in 2016, and bid unsuccessfully for Prince George’s County executive two years later.

Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin calls Jan. 6th committee evidence ‘devastating,’ warns of Electoral College ‘booby traps’

Maryland U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin says evidence collected by the Jan. 6 committee during its five weeks of public hearings will prove “devastating” to efforts by former President Donald Trump’s supporters to minimize the seriousness of the Capitol attack. “I think the cumulative effect of this will be devastating for those who wanted to try to dismiss the meaning of Jan. 6 and sweep it under the rug,” the Montgomery County Democrat told The Baltimore Sun as he prepared for Tuesday’s U.S. House select committee’s hearing.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Montgomery digital ballots disadvantage some candidates, groups say

Several Maryland organizations alleged that Montgomery County’s touch-screen ballots disadvantage candidates in certain primary election races in a letter sent to the county and state boards of election Monday. The full list of candidates running in certain races in the county primaries is displayed across multiple digital pages, the letter says, with inadequate notice that voters must press a small button labeled “more” to view additional candidates on the next page.

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