Seventeen-year-olds, who recently won the right to vote in Maryland primaries, are also entitled to cast ballots in nonpartisan elections, an Anne Arundel County judge ruled yesterday.
The decision by Judge Paul A. Hackner will allow teenagers who will turn 18 by the Nov. 4 general election and who registered to vote by last month's deadline to have a say in local school board and District Court judge races taking place Feb. 12.
His order is at odds with Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, who determined last month that the state constitution does not allow for early voters to partake in nonpartisan elections, including ballot questions. Assistant Attorney General Mark Davis, who argued the case on behalf of the State Board of Elections, said yesterday that his office will appeal to the state's highest court for clarification. A court date has been set for Thursday.
"We think this whole matter should be clarified because it's created so much confusion and consternation," Davis said.
The judge's ruling follows a State Board of Elections decision in December that 17-year-olds who will turn 18 before the November general election can cast ballots in the Democratic or Republican primary. That decision, however, left unclear the issue of early voters in nonpartisan elections.
Seventeen-year-olds were allowed to vote in Maryland primaries until December 2006, when then-Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. determined that early voting, which the Court of Appeals had just supported, was illegal. The Board of Elections subsequently began barring 17-year- olds from voting in the primaries.
But under pressure from the major political parties and others, Gansler reconsidered and found that the state's political parties have the right to decide who will choose their nominees, and in December the Board of Elections reversed its policy. Since then, at least 12,000 17-year-olds registered to vote by the state deadline of Jan. 22.
Clifford E. Snyder Jr. of Frederick County and Richard Boltuck of Montgomery County filed the lawsuit on behalf of their children, who will turn 18 by the election in November but would have been unable to vote in school board races this month.
"I thought it was great," Snyder, who is also a lawyer, said yesterday of the ruling. "The court, actually, in my opinion, did a wonderful thing."
nicole.fuller@baltsun.com