Voting Appears Robust Across D.C. Area

By Debbi Wilgoren and Daniela Deane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 7, 2006 6:46 PM

Voters in Virginia, Maryland and the District poured into polling stations today to cast ballots in races that will chart the future for many local governments and could help sway the balance of power in Congress.

Turnout was heavy in both Northern Virginia and the Maryland suburbs, election officials said, but there were few of the technological and human errors that paralyzed voting in the Maryland primary in September.

"This looks like a high-volume, orderly process," state comptroller candidate Peter Franchot (D) said at Piney Branch Elementary School in Takoma Park, where 275 people had voted by 9 a.m. "That's the way it should be in America."

But Maryland Democrats decried the use of campaign fliers at some Prince George's County precincts that suggested that Gov. Robert Ehrlich and Senate candidate Michael Steele -- both Republicans -- were part of the Democratic ticket.

"It's incredibly misleading," said Rick Abbruzzese, a spokesman for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Martin O'Malley. "It's part of the misleading tactics the Republican Party has used throughout this campaign."

The ballots were handed out by people who said they arrived by buses this morning from Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Erik Markle, one of the people handing out the literature, said he was recruited at a homeless shelter in Philadelphia and that after the two-hour bus ride to Maryland, workers were greeted by first lady Kendel Ehrlich. Markle said nearly all of those recruited were poor and black and were paid to distribute the inaccurate sample ballots.

In Virginia, where polling stations are open until 7 p.m., citizens were focused on the war in Iraq, and sharply divided on whether to reelect Sen. George Allen (R) or replace him with Democratic challenger James Webb. Voters will also decide whether to approve an amendment to the state constitution defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and will make choices in an array of congressional and local races , and bond issues for schools, transportation and other public works projects.

"It's time for a change," said George Melino, 49, an aerospace engineer and political independent from Ashburn who voted for Webb and for Judith Feder, the Democratic challenger to incumbent Congressman Frank Wolf (R). "It's too much religion in politics these days, and too much blind faith."

But in north Arlington, Virginia Wood said she voted the straight Republican ticket because she believes this country needs to stay the course in Iraq.

"We need to fix it," Wood said of the situation in Iraq. "If you dump it, it doesn't fix the problem. We need to stay where we are."

In Maryland and the District, polls will be open until 8 p.m. Maryland voters are choosing between Ehrlich and Baltimore Mayor O'Malley, and will pick either Steele, the lieutenant governor, or U.S. Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin (D) to replace retiring U.S. Senator Paul Sarbanes (D). Dozens of congressional seats and county government and school board positions are on the ballot as well.

The Senate races in both Virginia and Maryland are too close to call, based on recent polls, and each contest is considered critical to deciding whether Republicans will retain their majority in the U.S. Senate. Political observers said turnout efforts will be key. In both states, absentee ballots were cast by more voters than ever before.

Ehrlich campaigned in Prince George's County this morning, where copies of the controversial flier were being circulated outside some polling stations. The fliers, labeled "Ehrlich-Steele Democrats Official Voters Guide" included a "Democratic sample ballot" with the names of Ehrlich and Steele -- both Republicans -- checked off alongside several other Republicans and a host of Democrats for lesser office. Neither O'Malley nor Cardin are listed.

Fort Washington resident Barry Cyrus, 39, said he saw people passing out the ballots at his precinct, and met a first-time voter who was using the ballot to "vote for the Democratic party."

"She pulled out this sample ballot where Ehrlich and Steele were listed as Democrats. If I hadn't talked to her, she might have voted for them," said Cyrus, who said he stopped at five other polling places and saw the fliers being distributed at two of them. "People just need to be fair and not try to sway people with deception."

In the District, where voters are overwhelmingly registered Democrats, Ward 4 Council member Adrian Fenty (4) was expected to easily defeat the Republican and Statehood Green Party candidates to be the next mayor of the nation's capital, and Ward 7 Council member Vincent Gray (D) was unopposed in his bid for council chair.

If elected, Fenty has vowed to launch an "aggressive" transition . Voters also will decide several other council and school board seats , including the next president of the board of education. Despite a general lack of tight races, turnout at the polls was heavy, with some precincts running out of ballots by late morning and requesting new supplies.

O'Malley, a Montgomery County native, began his day voting in Baltimore, then came to Fallsmead Elementary School in Rockville to escort his mother to the polls. He said early-morning voting in Baltimore had gone much smoother than on primary day, with only 13 of the city's 400 polling places opening late, compared to 72 in the primary.

"The last-minute message is, everyone needs to go out and vote," O'Malley said.

At the Montgomery County school board office, voters overwhelmingly said they were voting for all the Democratic candidates, in a concerted effort to shift the balance of power in national politics.

"This is the first time I've voted for a Democratic slate in 25 years," said Jeff Hudgens, 57, a research chemist. "I just see the Republicans as being too extremely right and too extremely out of touch with what Americans want today."

In Silver Spring, voter Karen Jackson said she was most concerned about the Senate race, and felt that Steele took the votes of his fellow African Americans for granted.

"I just didn't like the way Michael Steele presented himself," said Jackson, who is black but voted for Cardin. "The fact that he's black so I should just vote for him, I didn't agree."

Carolina Perez, who like Jackson voted at Eastern Middle school, said she was most concerned about education and immigration -- and was disappointed that few candidates on the ballot tackled the second issue on the campaign trail. "I have many relatives who don't have their papers," Perez said.

Germantown residents Kevin and Alison Dobbs, both Republicans, said they voted mostly along party lines and were glad to see the end of the relentlessly negative barrage of campaign commercials.

"It was a lot of what this person has done that is bad, but very little about what the other person would do,'' said Kevin Dobbs, a youth pastor.

Maryland elections officials paid special attention to preparing polling stations and training poll workers , in hopes of avoiding a repeat of the problems that plagued the primary voting.

Officials in Montgomery County reported minimal difficulties -- poll workers had all the equipment they needed, and the electronic voter rolls did not freeze up as they had in September.

Terry Lierman, chair of the Maryland Democratic Party, said the Democratic party is finding "much higher voter turnout than we projected in Montgomery County." He declined to give specific numbers.

Bob Antonetti, the interim elections administrator for Prince George's County, said that as of 3 p.m., an unofficial tally indicated that more than 24 percent of registered voters had been to the polls in the county. He said that represented especially high turnout. "It's been extremely well attended," Antonetti said.

Judy Flaig, Fairfax County elections manager, said voter turnout was "very, very heavy" this morning, "on a presidential pace even," but said things slowed considerably in the afternoon. She said they may see another surge this evening when voters return home from work.

With absentee ballots double the amount collected in similar midterm elections, Flaig estimates they may achieve 60 percent voter turnout.

Voting was heavy throughout Loudoun County, where election officials found lines of as many as 100 people waiting for polls to open at 6 a.m.

By late afternoon, registrars in Alexandria, Arlington and Falls Church were also describing voter turnout as heavy, possibly record-breaking for a non-presidential year.

While Arlington Registrar Linda Lindberg said she couldn't tally how many people had come through the polls, she said her office was anticipating a 60 percent turnout.

"That's pretty darn high for a non-presidential year," Lindberg said. "It could end up being a record."

Alexandria's registrar, Tom Parkins, said residents have been calling in all day to check their eligibility to vote. Coupled with a higher number of provisional ballots being cast in this election, he said he believed they'd see a substantially larger turnout than the gubernatorial election just a year ago.

"This tells me that even voters who don't watch things real close and don't keep their voter registration up to date somehow have been highly motivated in this election," Parkins said.

Deborah Taylor, registrar for the City of Falls Church, described the voter turnout as "incredibly heavy" causing the city to run out of "I voted" stickers.

"It looks like its been like this statewide," Taylor said. "Everyone is saying it's like a presidential election."

Throughout Northern Virginia, poll workers in many precincts said turnout was more akin to a presidential election than a congressional midterm contest. More than 460 people had cast ballots at a Rosslyn fire station by 9 a.m., and people waited in line for more than an hour to vote in nearby Shirlington, Fairlington and Abingdon, Democratic Party circuit chair Kevin Appel said. In fast-growing Loudoun County, about 340 people had voted by 8 a.m. at Ashburn's Farmwell Station Middle School, with the vast majority opting for paper, rather than electronic, voting machines.

While most of those interviewed at Farmwell Station said they were supporting Webb in the Senate race, often because of frustration with U.S. policy in Iraq, there was substantial support for Allen as well.

Bob Baker Jr., a systems architect, said he voted for Allen because he trusts him and believes he has done a good job in the Senate so far. "The whole thing about Iraq is very unfortunate," Baker, 44, said. "Mistakes were made, unfortunately. But I don't think you can fault anybody for that."

In the Chapel precinct in Annandale -- a Fairfax precinct that went for Bush in 2004 but Gov. Timothy Kaine (D) in 2005, and where Webb must poll well if he is to win -- voter sentiment was decidedly split.

"I really don't want my taxes raised. I'm having a hard enough time making it in Fairfax," said Allen supporter Anne Harrell, 39.

"The economy is doing well. You listen to the numbers, and they're pretty darn good," Harrell said, as she loaded her 2-year-old son into his car seat in her minivan. "It's the money that's driving me."

In Virginia, a dispute arose over the color of the sample ballots being handed out by Democratic volunteers at polls in the 10th Congressional District straddling Fairfax and Loudoun counties.

Republican volunteers charged that the Democrats' sample ballots violated a new state rule against white or yellow sample ballots at polls -- a rule created to avoid confusion between partisan sample ballots and the ones mailed out to voters by local election boards.

Democrats defended their sample ballots, saying they were not yellow but "goldenrod," a shade that was specifically allowed as part of the "no white or yellow" rule. But Fairfax election workers sided with the Republicans and told Democrats to stop handing out the ballots, said Maggie Luca, secretary of the Fairfax electoral board. Democrats rushed to make new copies with a different color and distribute them to precincts.

Jan O'Dell, 68, who voted this morning at Great Falls elementary school, said she was told she'd be arrested if she brought the goldenrod sample ballot into the voting booth with her.

"It's my right, wrong color or not, to be able to look at both sides and not be threatened when I enter a voting place," O'Dell said. "That's intimidation. It worked on the people in front and behind me in line, but not on me." O'Dell said she brought the sample ballot into the voting booth with her.

In the heavily Democratic areas of Arlington and Alexandria, voters overwhelmingly said they would vote for Webb over Allen. "The reason I voted Democrat this time is two words: neuter Bush," said Mark Early, 46, a political independent. He said Republican leaders "are wrong on everything -- the environment, stem cells, the war."

Yacob Gessesse, a 37-year-old lawyer, said he voted for Allen in his first Senate campaign but changed his mind because of the senator's support for the Iraq war and the controversy over his use of the word ethnically derogatory term "macaca" to refer to a Webb campaign worker.

"The main thing that raised my eyebrow was his denial," said Gessesse, an immigrant from Ethiopia. "He said he didn't do it purposefully, so there must be something deep inside of him. It brought out a racist and anti-immigrant side of him."

He and other immigrants at the precinct said they supported the marriage amendment, which Allen has endorsed, because they felt it fit with their religious or cultural beliefs.

In Alexandria's Rosemont neighborhood, lines of voters stretched outside the building at Maury Elementary School. Brad Strickland, 47, said he voted against the marriage amendment, calling it "an economic loss for Virginia."

"The state should not be involved," Strickland said. "Virginia will lose residents if it's passed."

Staff writers Lori Aratani, Cameron Barr, Rosalind S. Helderman, Steve Hendrix, Ernesto Londono, Alec MacGillis, Emily Messner, Leef Smith, Sandhya Somashekhar and Ian Shapira contributed to this report.