It's a race that has stayed so confoundingly close that even professional predictors across the nation are at a loss. But today, when Maryland residents begin filing into their voting booths at 7 a.m., they will put an end to the months-long mystery of who will be the state's next governor.
At 1,600 polling places across the state, Marylanders - their tolerance worn thin for alternately schmaltzy and frightening television ads, glossy mailings and automated telephone calls - will choose between Democrat Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Republican U.S. Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.
And in the Baltimore and Washington suburbs, voters will decide two tight congressional races that have also caught national attention.
The gubernatorial contest has become so tense that the political parties spent considerable energy yesterday cranking up attacks on each other's alleged efforts to either encourage or suppress turnout of African-American voters.
Democrats even filed a lawsuit that, by evening's end, seemed to peter out.
State elections officials are hopeful that these toss-up races will lure people to the ballot boxes. Two previous nail-biter governor's races have provided a barometer.
"In the 1994 and the 1998 election, turnout was about 61 percent" of the state's 2.7 million registered voters, said Donna J. Duncan, chief of election management at the State Board of Elections.
"So while we're certainly hoping that it will be higher than that, we at least expect the same turnout."
Duncan said the Board of Elections had issued about 70,000 absentee ballots, which it will begin tallying Thursday. That means if the race is too close to call by tonight, final results would not come for at least several days.
The weather forecast should not prove too discouraging: sunny this morning with increasing cloudiness and a 30 percent chance of rain late in the day. The high will be in the mid-50s.
Polling places will stay open until 8 p.m.
While getting loyal troops to the polls is paramount for any candidate, the closeness of this governor's race has led both campaigns to launch the most aggressive and sophisticated get-out-the-vote efforts in recent memory.
Each has put together a strategy involving on-the-ground workers to coax people out of their houses and to the voting machines, along with hundreds of thousands of mailings and phone calls.
But the Townsend plan has encountered a tangle.
After the state Democratic Party advertised it would pay workers on Election Day to tout congressional candidates (and, by extension, Townsend), the state prosecutor and attorney general said such activity was illegal.
Meanwhile, Democrats are accusing Republicans of trying to suppress black voter turnout by intimidation.
Democratic plans now call for at least 1,000 paid workers to canvass neighborhoods in Baltimore City and Prince George's and Montgomery counties in a strictly nonpartisan manner, as required by a legal opinion issued yesterday.
Even though the party's efforts might be technically legal, Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. - a Democrat who is up for re-election today - has said he thinks it's a bad idea.
Schaefer critical
Yesterday, another Democratic official up for statewide re-election joined Curran's criticism of the party's plan.
"I think it's wrong to do this," said Comptroller William Donald Schaefer. "This is not the way voting is supposed to work. I just don't like the idea that they're going to pay $100 to people to get people to the polls. That's wrong."
In the meantime, Democrats and the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance held a news conference for a second day warning against intimidation of African-American voters in Baltimore.
They cited anonymous fliers allegedly discovered by Townsend campaign volunteers over the weekend at polling places telling voters that the election is Wednesday and that they must be paid up on traffic tickets and overdue rent - and be mindful of arrest warrants.
The Democratic officials and ministers also worried that off-duty Baltimore police officers who plan to volunteer for Ehrlich at poll sites will intimidate African-American voters. The Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Ehrlich over Townsend.
"If they're armed, then they will be definitely intimidating to African-American individuals," said state Sen. Joan Carter Conway, a Baltimore Democrat.
The Democratic National Committee filed a lawsuit yesterday afternoon seeking an emergency injunction to prohibit city officers from displaying either badges or weapons while volunteering at polls.
But within hours of a hearing in Baltimore City Circuit Court, Democrats agreed to drop the lawsuit after Republican lawyers wrote a letter saying that FOP members "are not planning to wear any indicia of office while they are working at the polls."
Gary McLhinney, president of the Baltimore FOP, said the union never had any intention of having off-duty officers display guns or badges - though they're required by department regulations to carry them when they're within city limits. He said officers will join off-duty firefighters in distributing literature.
'It's truly shameful'
"They're trying in order to get elected to drive a wedge between the community and the police officers, and it's truly shameful," said McLhinney, who noted FOP members have previously worked at polls for many Democratic candidates, including Conway.
Campaign and state officials vowed to be on the lookout for any wrongdoing.
While party operatives bickered yesterday, the candidates and their surrogates zoomed from Baltimore to the Washington suburbs and back gathering endorsements from police officers and offering last-minute capsules of their messages.
Townsend's camp pounded on Ehrlich as too conservative to lead Maryland; Ehrlich urged voters to put an end to the state's Democratic monopoly.
Townsend, 51, endured a frantic 17-hour day that began with 7 a.m. interviews and was slated to end after midnight at the Towson Diner.
At Rash Field next to the Inner Harbor, Townsend tossed around a football with Baltimore Ravens defensive end Michael McCrary, three of her daughters, her mother and her running mate, retired Adm. Charles R. Larson.
"She stands for everything I stand for," McCrary said. "She has a heart of a champion, like myself."
Ehrlich, 44, began his day at a Gaithersburg Metro stop and ended it at a rally in his home community of Arbutus. Afterward, he planned to get a haircut.
On a visit to Annapolis, Ehrlich caught sight of someone wearing a costume of a sandwich with the words "Bobby Baloney" on it. He approached the protester, who, when unmasked amid much laughter, was revealed to be state Democratic Party spokesman David Paulson.
Ready to move in
With about 30 supporters in tow, Ehrlich also bought $96 shoes at a Main Street shop and then took a walk around the perimeter of Government House, the governor's residence.
"There's our house," Ehrlich said. "It's a nice house," said his wife, Kendel.
Voters today will also elect all eight members of Maryland's House of Representatives delegation.
In the 2nd Congressional District, which includes Baltimore County and segments of Anne Arundel, Harford and Baltimore City, County Executive C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, a Democrat, is fighting Republican Helen Delich Bentley, who vacated the seat in 1994 to run for governor.
In the 8th District, covering Montgomery County and a slice of Prince George's, incumbent Republican Rep. Constance A. Morella is trying to retain her seat against Democratic challenger Christopher Van Hollen Jr., a state senator.
All 141 members of the state House of Delegates are up for election, as are their 47 Senate colleagues.
Among the most closely watched races is that of House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr., a Cumberland Democrat, who is running against Republican LeRoy E. Myers Jr., a businessman.
Marylanders will also choose between four-term Attorney General Curran, a Democrat, and Republican Edwin MacVaugh.
Comptroller William Donald Schaefer, also a Democrat, is running against Gene Zarwell.
Several county executive races will be decided today as well. In Baltimore County, Republican Douglas B. Riley is running against Democrat James T. Smith Jr.; in Harford County, incumbent James M. Harkins, a Republican, is facing Democrat Paul Gilbert; in Anne Arundel, incumbent Democrat Janet S. Owens is running against Republican Phillip D. Bissett.
In Carroll County, eight candidates are vying for three Board of Commissioner seats. They include three Republicans, three Democrats, a Green Party candidate and an independent.
Sun staff writer Tim Craig, David Nitkin and Jeff Barker contributed to this article.