Attorneys for Ellen R. Sauerbrey privately conceded yesterday that the Republican candidate is making no claim that Democrat Parris N. Glendening or election officials were involved in any scheme to steal Maryland's Nov. 8 election for governor.
The concession occurred during a four-hour private meeting in which attorneys for Mrs. Sauerbrey exchanged information with attorneys for Mr. Glendening, the state election board and election boards in Baltimore City and Prince George's and Montgomery counties, according to lawyers who attended the meeting.
Despite the concession, the Sauerbrey forces are pressing ahead with their lawsuit, maintaining that there were as many as 11,000 voting irregularities in the three jurisdictions that Mr. Glendening carried, including scores of votes that appear to have been fraudulently cast.
Mrs. Sauerbrey has asked an Anne Arundel County circuit judge either to award the election to her or to order a new election. Motions in the case are to be filed today, and a hearing is expected to be held a week from today.
Deputy Attorney General Ralph S. Tyler III, who represented the Baltimore and state election boards and the Board of State Canvassers at yesterday's meeting, confirmed that Mrs. Sauerbrey's attorneys were not alleging fraud by public officials.
"At the conclusion of the discussion of Baltimore City, I asked [Sauerbrey attorney Lee T. Ellis Jr.], 'Do you have any evidence or make any contention that any public official, any election board official, any candidate for office or any elected official . . . conspired, colluded or participated in any . . . fraud?' " Mr. Tyler said.
"He answered, 'No, we have no such evidence or no such contention,' " Mr. Tyler said.
Lawyers for the Montgomery and Prince George's counties election boards asked the same question "and were told the same thing," he said.
Mr. Ellis declined to repeat what he had said behind closed doors, but tacitly acknowledged that his client is making no allegations that Mr. Glendening or his running mate, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, or state or local election officials fraudulently conspired with voters.
He said Mrs. Sauerbrey clearly believes the Democratic candidates and Democratic-controlled election boards conspired to keep the Sauerbrey forces from getting quick access to voting records after the election. But he acknowledged she has made no similar claim of collusion involving activities before the election or on Election Day.
"Did somebody fraudulently do something? That's a different level of stuff," Mr. Ellis said. He said there was an intentional conspiratorial "tone" to the part of the lawsuit involving access to voting records, but noted that such a tone was not present in the portion of the pleading involving voting irregularities.
"I think we'll just let the papers speak for themselves," he said.
Bruce L. Marcus, a lawyer representing Mr. Glendening who was at the meeting, said the concession "puts to rest . . . any allegation of impropriety, or cloud over election officials who administered the election, or -- of equal importance -- over the next governor and his administration."
Mr. Tyler said he believed Mr. Ellis' acknowledgment was "significant" because it means that allegations of fraud would be "individual acts of individual voters." And those acts, he added, "should be prosecuted."
Mr. Tyler said that the lawyers had not completed their review of the suit, but said he understood Mr. Ellis' acknowledgment to mean that Mrs. Sauerbrey's attorneys "are saying that there was not any organized effort to interfere with the process."
Yesterday's meeting, in a conference room at the Baltimore law firm of Piper & Marbury, was the first time attorneys for Mrs. Sauerbrey have had a chance to explain to attorneys for the various defendants how they arrived at their allegations. At least people, most of them lawyers, were at the meeting.
The informal meeting is the first step in an accelerated schedule designed to bring the case to trial -- if it gets that far -- by Jan. 9.
That is nine days before Mr. Glendening is scheduled to be inaugurated.
Attorneys for Mr. Glendening also said that the Sauerbrey attorneys acknowledged in the private meeting yesterday that some of the 11,000 alleged voting irregularities specified in Mrs. tTC Sauerbrey's suit may have been double-counted. That is, a voter who may have been involved in one alleged voting irregularity may have also been counted as part of another alleged voting irregularity.
If true, that could reduce the total number of disputed votes. Mr. Glendening was declared the victor by a 5,993-vote margin.