Voter Registration Soars For Maryland Primaries

[Judi Lynn]

Aug 21, 2006 7:21 pm US/Eastern

Voter Registration Soars For Maryland Primaries

Suzanne Collins
Reporting

(WJZ) Baltimore, MD The deadline to register to vote in the Maryland primary election is tomorrow, and so far voter registration has soared.

Republican Governor Bob Ehrlich faces a major fight to keep his seat in the general election this fall. Poll numbers show his competitor Democrat Martin O'Malley slightly ahead.

In the Senate race Ben Cardin and Kweisi Mfume are neck and neck. Even the comptroller's race and the attorney general's race are hotly contested. That may be one reason voter registration is way up since the last state election.

"They're just more attentive to politics, much more fighting going on," political scientist Matthew Crenson tells WJZ's Suzanne Collins. "A fight brings out people."
(snip/...)

http://wjz.com/topstories/local_story_233194745.html

[Greeby]

1. Nice to know

Some of the turnout across the country has been terrible

[rodeodance]

2. I hear Americans are taking less vacations. We are top in the world for

vacation time. At least I think that is what I read. Perhaps that is what is getting them to vote---the so called good economy is hitting their pocketbooks.

You know what what they say--people vote from the pocket.

[FormerDem06]

6. Are you sure about the vacation thing?

I would have thought places like France and Spain with Mandatory months off would have more vacation time than the US.


ahhhh the source I saw:

http://www.vault.com/nr/newsmain.jsp?nr_page=3&ch_id=420&article_id=3810101&cat_id=1223


snip
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According to Hewitt Associates, the country with the most vacation days is Denmark with 31, followed closely by Austria and Finland at 30 days. France and Norway are at 25 days, Germany at 24 days, Belgium, Ireland, the U.K., the Netherlands and Switzerland each at 20 days. Non-European countries measured include Brazil at 22 days, Australia at 20 days and Colombia and New Zealand each at 15 days. The U.S. is second from the bottom with 10 days, tied with both Canada and Japan. Only Mexico, with a piddly six days, offers employees less vacation time.
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snip
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If U.S. vacation day allotments are at the discretion of employers, how did they become so uniformly unsatisfactory? It's something called "competitive practice," says Leeds. American companies mimic each others' vacation policies to remain competitive in the market for top talent, making the standard one to two weeks paid vacation a survival tactic, offered begrudgingly by employers.

Thanks to this method, U.S. employees receive an average of 9.6 paid vacation days after one year of service, 11.5 after two years, 13.8 after three years and 16.9 after five years, according to an employee benefits survey from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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snip
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The average unemployment rate for Europe is 10.1 percent compared to America's 4.1 percent - and European workers tend to be unemployed for nearly a year compared with only three to four months for Americans.
He also explains that Europe's industry output is dreadful when compared with the U.S. -- the European gross domestic product has grown 2.4 percent compared to America's 5 percent, over the past five years -- and believes their six-week vacation mandate is partly to blame. "When governments force businesses to pay workers to be idle beyond what is justified by the businesses' productivity, less wealth is produced, more capital is consumed and the result will be lower job-creation rates, lower real pay, or both," says Hudgins.
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[jsamuel]

7. Americans are at the bottom of the list on vacation time.

(we get little and tend to have longer work weeks than other countries)

[rodeodance]

3. they talk of a new voting law that may change before the election:

The biggest jump in voter registration rolls came in 2004 and an expert says that is attributable to interest in the presidential election that year. That was a spike across the country -- the biggest seen since 1960.

In the last gubernatorial election there were 2.8 million registered Maryland voters. That number rose to 3.1 million when President Bush was re-elected. It then went down again, and now is back up. The number of independents has risen 30%.

One of the reasons the numbers are up is because people can register to vote at the MVA and other government offices. Tomorrow is the deadline to register if you want to vote in the Maryland primary.

A new law allows people to vote in the five days leading up to election day, but that is being challenged in court and could change before September 12, primary day.

[ClintonTyree]

4. By the time Republicans finish purging them.........

there will probably be FEWER registered voters than before. Republicans HATE Democracy and the last thing they want is more people voting. I'd be interested in knowing how many of these newly registered voters actually get to vote. Probably just the ones who declared themselves Republicans.

[RCinBrooklyn]

5. Hope there are enough new voters to oust Al Wynn - THUG candidate. n/t