Friday, April 12, 2013
County officials said that the amount of traffic caught them by surprise and hampered the ability of the public to access election results.
Officials for DuPage County are saying that the influx of traffic to their election results website, which crashed the page between 8 and 10 p.m. on Tuesday night, has been a wake-up call to necessary improvements, the Chicago Tribune reports. According to the paper, the problem was caused when the available bandwidth was exceeded; page views peaked at 15,000 within a few minutes, 5,000 more than the peak in the 2012 elections. "If you asked me 72 hours ago if the site would peak out 50 percent higher than a presidential election, I would've laughed," Robert Saar, the election commission's executive director, told the paper. "Everybody here had their eyes opened. We're disappointed that it happened, but I'm extremely confident that going…
Thursday, November 8, 2012
A Dec. 31, 2012, deadline looms for Congress on a number of significant financial issues.
- GOVERNMENT
- Ben Gross
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Thursday, November 8, 2012
Now that the election is over, the most prominent problem facing the U.S. government is the “fiscal cliff.” You may have heard or seen the term in recent media coverage, but what, exactly, does “fiscal cliff” mean? If Congress fails to act, on Jan. 1, 2013, a number of financial policies will either expire or initiate, including $7 trillion worth of tax increases and spending cuts over the next 10 years. Some of the agencies and programs affected include: Defense cuts, air travel safety and food inspection cuts, income tax rates, the estate tax, marriage penalty relief, child tax credit, the alternative minimum tax, a drop in Medicare reimbursements, small business tax breaks and more. How do you feel about the country potentially going …
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
My husband and I cancel out each other's votes in many elections, but the effect on our kids is a good one.
Today is election day, also known as The Day All the Horrible Phone Calls and Political Ads End. It is a good day. The problem for my family, however, is that my husband and I are on opposite ends of the political spectrum and today is the day that an icy silence descends over my house. Remember those long days of hanging chads after the 2000 election? My husband and I didn't speak for probably two weeks. It got ugly. Now, of course, we have children to consider, forcing us to remain at least outwardly civil, regardless of whom edges out ahead in what is sure to be a nail-biter presidential election. Because one of us is a blue voter and one is a red voter, I'm assuming this makes my kids purple, which I actually think is a really cool …
Monday, November 5, 2012
How to have the best voter experience in Montgomery County.
The Montgomery County Board of Elections has two pieces of advice for the nearly half-million residents expected to hit the polls in tomorrow’s momentous presidential election: 1. Bring your sample ballot filled out; 2. Avoid the Election Day rush hour. Nearly 78,000 county residents took advantage of early voting and another 45,000 will be voting via absentee ballot, according to Board of Elections spokeswoman Marjorie Rohrer. But that still leaves more than 400,000 voters to flood the fewer than 250 polling sites—on average, roughly 1,600 voters per poll—between the hours of 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. Tuesday. The 2008 presidential election drew 441,796 Montgomery county residents to the polls—a 72 percent turnout—followed by a 52 percent turnout…
Thursday, November 1, 2012
More than 43,000 have voted early already in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties.
- ELECTIONS
- Ben Gross
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Thursday, November 1, 2012
Due to the dangers of Hurricane Sandy, early voting locations were closed Monday and Tuesday -- but Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley has now extended the early voting period through Friday for the entire state. During the two days that early voting locations were open, prior to Hurricane Sandy's arrival, 43,629 voters took advantage in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties. Montgomery County According to data from the Maryland State Board of Elections 23,509 of the 616,016 eligible people voted early on October 27 and 28. Of those voters, 16,183 were registered Democrats, 2,821 Republican, 3,753 unaffiliated and the rest split between the Green, Libertarian and “Other” parties. Females so far are outpacing their male early voter …
Friday, October 5, 2012
Local businesses help gauge the election through food and drink.
While choosing a candidate to vote for in the 2012 presidential campaign may seem daunting to some people, businesses in the area want to make sure that you are well-fed and well-caffeinated (and maybe even help predict the outcome) as you debate your selection. BGR: The Burger Joint Reviving its popular campaign from 2008, BGR began offering menu selections celebrating the candidates’ hometowns. BGR has locations in Bethesda, Potomac, Columbia and Gaithersburg. California Tortilla The popular Mexican restaurant has taken a slightly different tactic, honoring the candidates' personal lives: California Tortilla has locations in Silver Spring, Rockville, Gaithersburg, Bethesda, Olney, Annapolis and Potomac. Click here to read more about …
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Tell us your opinion in comments below.
The first presidential debate is over and the talking heads and water cooler gossip hounds will be talking about it for the next few days. But all politics is local and we want to know what issue is most important to you in Takoma Park. What national issue will affect the city the most. Leave your opinion in comments below.
Friday, July 27, 2012
The system has been in place since 2006.
An instant run off voting system was tested in the July 17 Ward 5 special election, according to a Gazette report. Voters rank their voting choices in an instant runoff system and when no candidate receives a majority, the second-choice votes for people who voted for the third place candidate are added to the other two candidates. The system was actually put into place in 2006, but was never needed because the winning candidate always received a majority, according to a Gazette report. In the Ward 5 special election, out of the 189 total votes, third place finisher Melinda Ulloa received 33 votes. Thirteen of those votes went to the eventual winner Jarrett Smith, who ended up with a total of 97 votes and nine of her votes went to Eric …
Friday, June 15, 2012
Candidates and issues that will be on the ballot in November.
As we look ahead to November’s elections, Patch brings you the information you need to cast an informed ballot. Here's a quick look at the candidates and issues we'll be covering as November draws near. Bookmark this page for updates. We'll also be running stories on the upcoming special election in Takoma Park's Ward 5 so look out for that. THE CANDIDATES President: President Barack Obama: Maryland is a reliably Democratic state for presidential candidates. Obama held a fundraiser in Owings Mills on June 12, and campaigned in Baltimore with Gov. Martin O'Malley. He visited Towson University for a basketball game in November 2011. GOP Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney: The former Massachusetts governor visited Maryland in March. Remember …
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
In the Montgomery County Board of Education primary, Morris Panner took the No. 2 spot for the At-Large ballot; Fred Evans and Rebecca Smondrowski took the top spots for District 2.
Although the Republican presidential primary bolstered Maryland into national headlines Tuesday, locally Montgomery County voters also narrowed the field for the Board of Education’s general election in November. The unofficial results show that Phil Kauffman and Morris Panner beat out the two other candidates on the ballot to advance to the general election for the at-large seat. Kauffman received 60.3 percent of the vote, and Panner received 17 percent of the vote. The next runner-up, Lou August, received 11.9 percent of the vote. "I am really honored to have received the support I did," Panner, a resident of the Town of Somerset in Chevy Chase, told Chevy Chase Patch. "It is such an important time in our [c]ounty's history and a …
Corbin Dallas Multipass
4:43 pm on Friday, November 9, 2012
"Just like the governor's idiocy. A few commuters got to keep their jobs while many thousands more lost the opportunity. Sheesh. Talk about ingrained stupidity." What? The jobs are moved from LA and weren't available here. How did commuters keep jobs that didn't exist? more ›