From Maryland.gov.

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The Session in Annapolis has ended. Recent bills passed in the Maryland House and Senate do not favor the rights of parents to guide and protect their children. Most parents would agree that they know their children better than any strangers. While there are some parents who are negligent, the negligence of the few should not be the reason to deprive all parents of their choices in regard to their children.

I was disappointed to see SB738 pass, the bill that some people call “The Freedom to Read Porn Act” since it allows minor children access to material which most parents would deem inappropriate. Another bill that passed is HB 76-Health Occupations - Pharmacists - Administration of Vaccines. As our own Jan Greenhawk so eloquently put it in The Easton Gazette on April 13, 2024:

This is another one of those sneaky bills that may sound good to a beleaguered parent who doesn't want to schedule a doctor's appointment for vaccines but this is another bill that can cause more trouble than it solves. The harm is in the wording because now children as young as three can get vaccines at your neighborhood pharmacy as long as there is an ‘adult caregiver’ with the child. That may not always be a custodial parent or relative.

So a daycare provider or a teacher can ostensibly decide that the children in her care need a certain vaccine and can have it administered without informing the parents. Do we see where this is headed? Are government-appointed personnel going to be making medical decisions for our children? We need to ask Governor Moore not to sign HB76 into law. Or SB738, for that matter.

In other matters, concerned citizens of Talbot County have been attending Board of Elections meetings in the quest for assurance of Voter Integrity in elections. One group of citizens has been repeatedly submitting petitions for past election documentation according to the Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA). They even met privately with members of the Board in which the Board member in charge of IT walked out when asked some hard questions.

At 215 Bay St., Suite 7 in Easton, MD on April 17, 2024 the Board of Elections met in a meeting open to the public. They included in their agenda a time for “Public Comment” in which members of the community may speak. On their website, the Board of Elections has the following cryptic statement:

Public comment is not a Debate. It is not a question and answer session. It is not a discussion. It is not a conversation. If, after a public comment, a member of the BOE wishes to clarify by question, that is possible. With that in mind, the BOE thanks the public for your interest, welcomes the public to speak and requests that anyone who would like to speak please state your name for the record.

So it appears that public comments are welcomed as long as they are innocuous statements and do not demand too much information from the Board. At any rate, several citizens were present with questions and comments which they began to respectfully submit during the time set aside for “Public Comment.”

One citizen asked about the cameras above the two ballot drop boxes, which both appear to be attached to the buildings and are actually the buildings’ front door monitoring system. She asked if those were the cameras used to monitor the drop boxes as required by COMAR, and if so, were they retaining the videos for the required 22 months so they could be reviewed. The same person asked if the Board had addressed the issue of official emails going only to the Executive Director of the Board and not to the other members.

The Board of Elections was also asked if there was a place where the number of election judges at each voting site could be accessed, since it was reported that in Oxford, MD there were 6 Democrat judges but only 3 Republican judges. The number of judges from each political party is supposed to be equal. But, according to the citizen’s testimony, two Republicans from Oxford who had applied to be judges had been told that they were not needed.

Other questions and comments were made to the Board of Elections by concerned citizens during the course of the April 17 meeting until one woman was harshly and abruptly interrupted by the Executive Director. Another attendee asked that the woman be permitted to speak.  Then the group of concerned citizens was threatened with expulsion.

We must question the policy of the Board of Elections to claim to allow “Public Comment” when it is obvious that genuine and serious inquiry about a matter vital for the functioning of democracy like Voter Integrity is met with hostility.

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