Maryland bloggers respond to this week's election failures in three of Maryland's largest jurisdictions, resulting in a potential contest over the results particularly in MD-4. Attached are some cross-posts, but they form only part of the content of this diary. The purpose is to get us Maryland Kossacks and Maryland bloggers off our butts to go "under the hood" and help repair this massive failure of self-government, deter and restrain its repeat and, only if appropriate and if supported by actual evidence, support the prosecution of any deliberate wrong-doers.
From
Free State Politics, with minor edits:
Yes, Maryland progressives and all fair-minded people are angry about the uber-fiasco in Montgomery County and similar farces in Prince George's County and the City of Baltimore.
Yes, we should be furious. But that is not enough.
We should support and applaud all efforts to uncover the truth about what happened in the different jurisdictions that effected such a large disenfranchisement of literally tens of thousands of Marylanders, of American citizens.
We should support everyone who supports fair process and sunshine upon this fiasco.
We should support Donna Edwards in her bid for the Democratic nomination for the Fourth Congressional District not because she is liberal, not because of her outstanding records of civic service, but because we have reason to believe that this incompetence deprived Marylanders of the ability to elect her fairly. Even if she were a right-wing social conservative with views that most Crablaw readers would find not to their preference, we would still do right by standing up for her aggressively and loudly. If even Rick Santorum or George W. Bush himself were burned this way, honorable people would stand by either. This is not about whether we get Al Wynn or Donna Edwards; this is about the rule of law, the core rights of citizenship and continued public confidence in our very form of government, beyond the changing winds of party, policy and personality.
We should support all reasonable efforts to deter and restrain this farce, to remediate its victims wherever such possibility actually exists and, if gross negligence or willful misconduct is shown to be the cause, support the criminal prosecution of the guilty under applicable law. Deterrence and restraint include, in my view, some firings after an appropriate investigation. Remediation means supporting those who may fight the good fight for judicial relief against executive and administrative incompetence, dereliction and reckless disregard of settled law, court orders and fundamental electoral due process.
We were not flooded, no one lost property or their livelihood. But this failure of core competence is Katrina-esque. The local Boards of Election, sadly, did not do their sole job - deliver a substantially fair and legally compliant election - but did instead a "heckuvajob" upon the citizenry whose Trustee they were and still are now.
The facts are not fully available. Maryland is said to have a "middle temperament" perhaps comparable to the "land of steady habits" which Connecticut is said to be. The extremes to avoid are despair and frantic manic anger at this electoral farce; a middle temperament calls for deliberate focus and a steeled resolve among all of us - lawyers, bus drivers, teachers, citizens, parents, students and even bloggers - to hold our public trustees' feet to the fire, stand up for the rule of law and the rule of Constitutional law and make certain that this anti-democratic outrage must not and will not stand.
From
Crablaw Maryland Weekly:
Dear Ms. Edwards:
My name is Bruce Godfrey; like yourself I am an attorney in Maryland and the District of Columbia and also manage the web log Crablaw Maryland Weekly, which discusses Maryland law and politics.
My blog is not "journalism" but is rather oriented towards commentary and civic activism. Life is a moving train and Crablaw does not attempt to stay neutral on a moving train. We would be grateful to be part of the efforts to assure the voters of the Fourth District that the winner of your primary election actually wins and that everyone - voters and candidates alike - can have confidence in the final result.
To that end, please forward this to your media team and/or legal advisors and consider my site not an Edwards partisan site, but a friendly advocate for due process and the preservation of free, fair elections in my home state of 37 years.
Very truly yours,
Bruce Godfrey, Attorney
Editor in Chief, Crablaw Maryland Weekly
What I am hoping is that the Marylanders on this site will look at these letters and think "Gee, I could have done those a lot better - maybe I can contribute!" If so - good! Your community needs you now. Self-government means that you and I have to be the grease-covered mechanics to repair the machinery of government. We cannot subcontract this to the "powers that be" because this is about how we choose - and depose! - the powers that be themselves, unless we want to be a community of high-standard-of-living, iPod and Starbucks-laden serfs.
Some Marylanders on DKos have called for Markos or other luminaries to step in and help. That is great, but we Marylanders must take the initiative first here at home. Even though local federal elections are in a sense nationwide under campaign finance and organizational realities, if we Marylanders want clean elections, fair elections, verifiable elections, real elections, we have to move the needle towards fairness ourselves. Help from our allies in other states is WONDERFUL - but ours must be the first, the hardest, the fiercest and the most enduring shovels into the dirt. We should be setting the example, especially we Maryland bloggers but all of us.
In the coming days and weeks, subject to the brutality of my 4 hour round-trip commute and my day job's requirements, I expect to be posting more on this topic. Other Maryland bloggers, such as political science Professor David Lublin of American University on Maryland Politics Watch and the blogger ensemble Free State Politics linked above, will be active on this topic.
An ancient sage once wrote, "Yours it may not be to complete the task, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it." I do not exaggerate the importance of bloggers towards the final resolution of this Maryland matter, but we bloggers who love Maryland - who love what makes it a leading progressive state in our country, who love it particularly at its civic-minded best, regardless of party or politics - are bound by our civic consciousness and our very consciences NOT to stand down in the face of this actual and potential civic disaster.
Who is ready to grab a wrench now?