Court rejects early voting

ANNAPOLIS — Maryland’s highest court struck down legislation yesterday passed by the Democrat-controlled legislature to allow early voting and declared a Democratic candidate for attorney general candidate ineligible to run.

“Today’s decision by the Maryland Court of Appeals is a victory for the Maryland Constitution and for citizens who want fair and accurate elections in Maryland,” said Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Republican running for re-election.

The law would have allowed in-person balloting at specific polling places during the week before the Sept. 12 primary and the Nov. 7 general election.

The court’s seven judges based their ruling on a section of the state constitution that allows for only one day of voting. The Maryland Attorney General’s Office had argued that the phrase “Election Day” could mean several days of voting.

Mr. Ehrlich vetoed the legislation because, he said, it opened the door for voter fraud. State lawmakers overrode his veto this year.

The court ruled on the voting issue and the candidacy of Tom Perez yesterday afternoon after hearing about an hour of arguments on each case in the morning.

The court ruled that Mr. Perez, a Montgomery County Council member and Takoma Park resident, “does not possess the constitutional qualifications for the office of attorney general by reason of not having practiced law in Maryland for 10 years.”

The suit was filed by Stephen N. Abrams, a Republican and Montgomery County school board member who is running for state comptroller.

He filed the suit because Mr. Perez had been a member of the state bar association for only five years.

Mr. Perez, 44, argued that his time as a federal prosecutor while living in Maryland, before being elected to his council seat in 2002, fulfilled the constitutional requirement.

But the court disagreed and ordered the state board of elections to remove Mr. Perez’s name from the ballot before the Sept. 12 primary.

Neither Mr. Perez, who is now a University of Maryland law professor, nor his campaign manager returned phone calls.

“Tom was absolutely convinced that there was no merit to this case,” said Mr. Abrams, also a Rockville lawyer. “I was always convinced that there was merit, but you run the risk of whether the case is going to be decided on the law or on policy.”

Mr. Perez had been running in a tight Democratic primary against Montgomery County State’s Attorney Douglas F. Gansler and former Baltimore city State’s Attorney Stuart O. Simms.

Frederick County State’s Attorney Scott J. Rolle is the Republican candidate in the race to succeed Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr., a Democrat who is retiring.

House Speaker Michael E. Busch, Anne Arundel Democrat, said the ruling on early voting was unfortunate and that the lawmakers enacted the measure only after the state’s Attorney General Office’s gave the opinion that it was constitutional.

“The legislature believed this was the right direction to go in,” he said. “But the courts have spoken, and we’ll go on from there.”

Terry Lierman, chairman of the Maryland Democratic Party, said the ruling would “disenfranchise thousands of voters in the state [such as] emergency personnel and day laborers who don’t often have an opportunity to vote.”

“It’s a pretty sad day,” he said.

Mr. Ehrlich has said he does not oppose the concept of early voting and, if re-elected, would work with lawmakers on better legislation.

“The General Assembly’s early-voting scheme was flawed, irresponsible and a blatant overreach of its authority under the Maryland Constitution,” he said.

State lawmakers rejected Mr. Ehrlich’s attempt to have a paper record of votes cast on the state’s new touch-screen machines to, in part, reduce potential fraud. And critics said the plan placed the early-voting sites in a majority of heavily Democratic precincts.

The Baltimore Board of Elections last week mailed notices to 300,000 city voters telling them they can participate in early voting, which roiled Gene M. Raynor, a director on the board.

“I think the city just wasted $80,000,” Mr. Raynor said yesterday, adding the board approved the mailing without his knowledge. “I’d like to tell the whole world, ’We made a mistake in Baltimore city. There will be no early voting.’”

Baltimore and Prince George’s County, which have two of state’s largest concentrations of registered Democrats, were the most populated jurisdictions to mail early-voting notices, despite the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court striking down the law Aug. 11. That decision was appealed to the Maryland high court.

The state will now have to reprogram more than 19,000 electronic voting machines, and reprint about 250,000 absentee and provisional paper ballots.

“It’s certainly a challenge to change the ballots at this late date,” said Mary Wagner, director of voter registration at the board of elections. “We’re 16 days out.” Miss Wagner also said that roughly 20,000 absentee ballots have already been mailed, and that the board’s lawyers were consulting on how to fix the problem.

The early-voting law is the third law passed this year over Mr. Ehrlich’s veto that has been struck down by the courts.

Maryland courts overturned a law that would have forced Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to pay a minimum amount of employee health benefits and a law that would have fired the governor-appointed Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities.

• S.A. Miller contributed to this report.