The state election board is asking lawmakers for up to $100,000 to hire a private investigator to look into irregularities during November's election.
Members of the State Administrative Board of Election Laws said yesterday that they would give the General Assembly until March 2 to respond to their request, which was sent last week to Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. and House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers, including Mr. Miller and Mr. Taylor, already have proposed creating a 13-member task force to review the state's election laws and recommend changes by Dec. 31.
"I don't think [the] task force is going to look into this past situation -- the general election of 1994," said Barbara B. Kendall, the board's vice chairwoman. "That's how we learn, by looking back at the past."
Ms. Kendall, a Republican, said the panel wants to complete its review by June -- in part because their commissions expire then and because Baltimore has a mayoral election in September.
If legislators don't give the board the money and the authority -- including subpoena powers -- the members believe they need, they said they would consider holding public hearings instead.
That promise did not seem to satisfy the crowd of 50 people who packed into the five-member board's tiny Annapolis headquarters. They urged the panel to focus on the failure of Baltimore election officials to purge 40,000 names from the voter registration rolls before the election.
Echoing charges leveled by Republican gubernatorial candidate Ellen R. Sauerbrey, many in the audience demanded the board request an immediate criminal investigation.
The two-hour meeting had the feel of a town hall gathering. From the outset, the audience appeared adversarial as most refused Chairman James W. Johnson Jr.'s request that they identify themselves.
At one point, Mr. Johnson threatened to have board member Daniel J. Earnshaw, who encouraged the audience to disregard the chairman's requests, removed from the building.