The Election
My in-laws, who live in Baltimore, visited after Christmas and asked me whether Parris Glendening had won the Maryland governor's race honestly. I have been analyzing election returns from a nonpartisan perspective since 1980.
At first blush, Ellen Sauerbrey's allegations of fraud in Baltimore City seem credible.
This year, Republicans were winning in high-turnout elections, while Democrats were winning in low-turnout elections.
While the Maryland governor's race was a high-turnout race, compared to previous governor's races, the turnout in Maryland was low compared to other states this year.
A closer look at the results from Baltimore City provide even more compelling proof of the absence of voter fraud.
Mrs. Sauerbrey was the highest Republican vote-getter in Baltimore City with 38,420 votes, compared with 26,532 for Senate candidate Bill Brock, 28,867 for attorney general candidate Richard Bennett, 24,912 for comptroller candidate Timothy Mayberry and 20,127 votes for the Republican congressional candidates in Baltimore City.
Mr. Glendening ran fourth among the Democrats in Baltimore City.
Compared to Mr. Glendening's 114,022 votes in Baltimore City, the Democratic congressional candidates received 120,815, and Senate candidate Paul Sarbanes got 118,796.
Even the Democratic candidates for State Senate in Baltimore City got 115,262 votes, 1,240 more than Mr. Glendening's total.
What this means is that at least 6,796 Sauerbrey voters in Baltimore City voted for the Democratic candidates for Congress; at least 4,774 Sauerbrey voters in Baltimore City voted for Mr. Sarbanes for Senate; and at least 1,240 Sauerbrey voters voted for Democratic candidates for State Senate.
Are we really supposed to accept that the Democrats committed massive vote fraud in Baltimore City so that their gubernatorial candidate would finish fourth among the Democrats in Baltimore City, behind the State Senate candidates, when the gubernatorial race had the highest turnout?
There is no possible way that these election results in Baltimore City could be consistent with allegations of massive vote fraud for Mr. Glendening. He didn't even get the highest number of Democratic votes in Baltimore City.
Joshua Leinsdorf
( Atlantic Highlands, N.J.
Education
It is ironic that a letter from Samuel L. Banks (Dec. 28) would be published alongside an Opinion * Commentary article by Linda Seebach outlining what parents wish the experts to do about schools.
Next to Mr. Banks' educationalese gobbledegook, Ms. Seebach tells us, from research, parents want the basics taught. "Order, safety and the basics," as she writes.
I surmise from Mr. Banks' writing that he would rather see history presented as a series of social issues rather than the traditional history we older generation types remember.
I would also guess that the majority of white males he claims are mentioned are those shown in a negative light, ones who somehow have maligned certain members of other ethnic groups or people of color.
White-male bashing has become a popular sport among liberals as depicted in movies, TV sitcoms and TV commercials. Ever notice how the white male is always made to look silly?
Now these revisionists want to legitimize white males in a bad light.
Mr. Banks and his ilk attempt to take anecdotes from history and present them as the way things really were to make ethnics and people of color feel good about themselves, at the same time ignoring the major accomplishments of the pioneers of our nation.
Our country was framed by people, not ethnic groups.
Julius Angelucci
Severna Park
@
Taxing Deficits
Katherine Lenfestey, in a letter Dec. 22, criticizes Congress for promoting tax cuts "when our country is staggering under a massive deficit."
Obviously Ms. Lenfestey fails to understand economic dynamics and has also failed to look at government revenues during periods when the taxes were cut.
In every period when taxes were cut, the government's tax revenues on an annual basis greatly exceeded annual revenues prior to tax cuts.
There are good reasons for this seeming paradox. When people have more money to spend (because of tax cuts) they will spend more, and this spending not only makes up for lost revenues due to tax cuts but indeed adds a large surplus.
When taxes are increased, government revenues sharply decrease because all will have to tighten their financial belts by sharply decreasing their spending.
It is not tax cuts that create additional debt. It is government spending when revenues increase.
Of course liberal Democrats would like to propagandize individuals such as Ms. Lenfestey to believe that they must make the sacrifice by accepting a bigger payout to the government rather than government cutting back on large wasteful social programs.
The objective of the latter programs are to keep the liberal Democrats in power. Hard working Americans (as seen by the election results) are tired of paying out into these programs to benefit those who refuse to pull their own economic weight.
J. Edward Johnson Jr.
Timonium
The writer is chief executive officer of Forecast Research
Systems Inc.
Barriers to Prison Tutoring
A
I read with interest the Opinion * Commentary piece Dec. 28 by Nathaniel Johnson Jr., an inmate, asking for more volunteers in our prisons.
As someone who has tried to volunteer, and met with one obstacle after another, I feel compelled to respond.
I started calling the Maryland correctional system several years ago to volunteer to tutor reading. At least twice I was told that due to budget cuts or restructuring there was no way to accommodate volunteers.
Finally, last winter, a volunteer coordinator was hired at one of the facilities in Jessup.
After a lengthy orientation process, I began working with an inmate who was studying to get her high school equivalence degree. She worked extraordinarily hard, producing piles of homework pages for me to review with her each time we met.
Unfortunately, on over half the occasions that I went to meet her, she was not there. Reasons cropped up: Her lunch schedule had been changed, she had to attend a meeting or a guard simply didn't let her out of her quarters for tutoring.
No one ever informed the education staff or me in advance of these obstacles.
Apparently, the combination of an enormous bureaucracy and the belief shared by many prison employees that inmates don't really deserve education made tutoring a practical nightmare.
I decided to try a facility closer to my home so that at least if my student didn't show up I would not have wasted the better part of a day driving to and from the jail.
The education staff in Jessup contacted an administrator at one of the facilities downtown.
I received one phone call and one letter thanking me for my interest . . .Then I waited. I called weekly.
Each time I was given another excuse: The staff was changing buildings, the person in charge was on vacation, etc. After two months, I gave up trying.
I have a master's degree in teaching reading and several years experience tutoring learning-disabled students. My main occupation is staying home with my child.
The only limit to my schedule is finding child care for the hours that I tutor.
If the prison system can't accommodate me, whom can they accommodate?
I share Mr. Johnson's belief that prisons are a prime spot for volunteers. Inmates are, quite literally, a captive audience. They are free from the distractions of children, jobs and everyday life that normally make tutoring adults difficult.
As long as people inside and outside the prison believe that inmates only "deserve" to sit idly watching their sentences pass by -- at enormous taxpayer expense -- rather than learning a productive skill, volunteerism in the prisons will be minimally successful.
Before we pat ourselves on the backs for getting tough on crime by building more prisons, I hope people will consider what is necessary to make prisons truly beneficial to society.
Carrie Armstrong Montague
Owings Mills