Voters Pass Slots Referendum in Maryland

By John Wagner and Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 4, 2008 10:56 PM

Maryland voters have agreed to amend the state constitution and allow slot machine gambling at five locations, a ballot measure that breaks a perennial stalemate in Annapolis.

With support for the measure running strong across the state as votes are being counted, the referendum has now racked up enough votes to ensure its passage

The plan, backed by Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), will allow up to 15,000 machines at locations in Allegany, Anne Arundel, Cecil and Worcester counties and Baltimore.

O'Malley and other slots boosters, who enjoyed a sizable fundraising advantage during the campaign, cast the measure as a way to help balance the state budget and aid Maryland's ailing horse-racing industry. Opponents questioned estimates that slots could eventually yield $660 million a year for education and highlighted addiction and other social ills that could accompany expanded gambling.

As voters went to the polls in overwhelming numbers today, debate over the measure was as impassioned at some locations as it has been in recent years in the General Assembly. In heavily Democratic Takoma Park, Matthew Graham and Jared Hughes engaged in a boisterous debate about the issue.

"Government should not promote and support a vice," said Hughes, 36, operations manager for FotoWeek DC. "It's a tax on poor people."

Matthew Graham, a patent engineer, countered him, saying Maryland already has gambling via the lottery and racetracks.

"The little old ladies who play slots don't do a lot of crime," said Graham, 48.

Some voters said they could not support the referendum because of social ills associated with gambling.

"It is a slimy way to raise money," said Gary Gunn, 54, of Chesapeake Beach, who was selling Krispy Kreme donuts to raise money for his son's Boy Scout troop outside Windy Hill Middle School.

Others insisted passage of the referendum could help education, a view that carried the day.

"I'm naively optimistic that it's eventually going to funnel back to the schools," said Jesse Boyer, 37, who voted in Takoma Park. "I have two little kids.

Voters have also approved a lower-profile constitutional amendment, known as Question 1, that would authorize the legislature to establish early voting starting in the 2010 elections.

Defeat of the slots measure would have made an already challenging state budget outlook more bleak, O'Malley and legislative leaders said.

Maryland is facing a $1 billion shortfall in next year's budget that will be largely unaffected by slots. Projected gaps in future budgets would have grown significantly larger without the anticipated revenue, however.

Analysts estimate that total slots proceeds will reach almost $1.4 billion by fiscal 2013, the first full year in which all 15,000 machines would be generating revenue. About half of total proceeds will go to education. Other shares of the proceeds are earmarked for the operators of the slots parlors, the horse-racing industry and the local governments where the facilities are.

Concern about the state budget -- and the economy more generally -- appeared to bolster support for slots among Maryland voters in the closing weeks of the campaign. A Washington Post poll published Oct. 22 found 62 percent of likely voters supported the ballot measure, while 36 percent said they would vote against it. Only 2 percent said they were undecided.

There was broad public concern that a defeat of the slots measure would lead Maryland to scale back money for public schools, cut other programs or reduce aid to local governments. Those worries largely mirror arguments that were made in television and radio ads by For Maryland For Our Future, the O'Malley-backed group leading the slots campaign.

As of Oct. 19, the group had raised nearly $4.4 million, more than seven times as much as groups opposing the ballot measure. Much of the pro-slots funding had come from gambling and racing interests that stand to benefit from the introduction of slots in Maryland.

The leading anti-slots group, whose public face has been Comptroller Peter Franchot (D), had raised $570,773 as of the last reporting deadline.

Franchot, a former delegate from Montgomery County, drew criticism during the campaign, including some from other anti-slots activists, for his aggressive tactics. He was sharply critical of O'Malley and other pro-slots politicians and urged voters not to trust Annapolis.

Debate over slots paralyzed Annapolis during the tenure of O'Malley's Republican predecessor, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. The legislature came close to passing slots legislation in 2005, when competing plans passed the Senate and House. The legislation failed when the two versions were never reconciled.

Last year, O'Malley proposed putting the issue to voters as part of an effort to compromise and move on.

The other constitutional amendment, which will authorize early voting up to two weeks before Maryland elections, has drawn less attention but was opposed by Republican lawmakers.

In 2006, the legislature passed an early voting law over Ehrlich's objections. The law was later struck down by the courts as unconstitutional. The ballot measure would allow the legislature to enact a new law.

House Minority Leader Anthony J. O'Donnell (R-Calvert) recently said the new proposal is "ripe for fraud" because it would allow people to vote early at polling places outside of their districts.

Staff writers Steve Hendrix and Christy Goodman contributed to this report.