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ber of officials from the ballot. We suggest
that these are the problems presented by
odd year elections. When we say high turn-
out, we mean, for presidential elections,
85 per cent on the average in Maryland.
The turnout for state elections on the aver-
age is about 65 per cent. The turnout or
the average for county elections ranges
from a low in Baltimore City, considering
Baltimore City to be a county, of about 45
per cent up to about 55 per cent.
This was a document prepared by Miss
Gail Moran of the research staff covering
the past ten years. In response to Delegate
Hopkins' question what she did was to
find all registration figures in all counties
that we asked for. We asked for a sam-
pling in every election over the past ten
years. She then gave me a perceiitage
turnout in each one of the elections, na-
tional, state, and local. When it was
merged with the state election or the local,
when the county executive or commissioner
was merged with the state we have per-
centages on each one in each one of these
sample counties for the past ten years.
I can only say to you that the per-
centages I have suggested of average turn-
out on each of the three levels is an
accurate percentage. What we think hap-
pens, is documented by a paper prepared
by Dr. Jean Spencer for President Eney.
She was asked to suggest what is the re-
sponse to issues when the issues are com-
bined with a gubernatorial year election
or with a presidential year election. Her
response was that although 85 per cent
might turn out to vote for president, it is
perfectly clear 85 per cent do not vote on
everything on the ballot. The same is true
for governor. Sixty-five percent will vote
for the governor but 65 percent will not
vote for everything on the ballot. It does
prove that there is a significant increase in
the presidential year of those voting on the
less-than-presidential issues. So the same
thing is true of the gubernatorial level. If
you have a 65 percent turnout on the gu-
bernatorial level and 55 or 45 percent on
the local level, the lesser issues will get a
higher response in the gubernatorial than
in the local. We documented this. This can
be carried over into personalities as well
as issues. I have taken one election year,
not 1967 in Baltimore City, but 1963, which
was, I think, if I recall correctly, an inter-
esting election. We have found that there
is at least a 12 percent difference between
the turnout in Baltimore City in 1963 and
the turnout in Baltimore County in 1962
when it was, with the gubernatorial and
county executive.
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We have documented the point, both for
issues and personalities, that there is a
higher turnout in both the gubernatorial
and presidential elections and that higher
turnout spills over, but not 100 percent,
into all issues and personalities tied into
that election.
I think it is perfectly clear from all of
our experiences in elections that you can-
not possibly, no matter how much you
might wish to do it, insulate an election.
I recall this past mayoralty election, that
Arthur Sherwood running on the Republi-
can ticket, certainly attempted to bring into
the election the national policies of Presi-
dent Johnson. Governor Nunn in Kentucky
in 1967, running for Governor of Kentucky,
did the very same thing, challenged the
national administration and won.
The point is, and this is our basic dis-
agreement, if we thought there was a rea-
sonable chance, if you isolated each level
of election, of accomplishing the admittedly
meritorious goal of the majority, we would
have no hesitation in joining it. But the
evidence is perfectly clear you cannot gain
these things and all you do is gain a great
number of disadvantages. One is cost. The
majority has not suggested what the cost
of the elections would be. Again we have
documented the cost by requesting the
State to indicate to us what the state dis-
tribution to the political subdivisions was
for the 1966 general election. The total
cost statewide was $750,000. I do not
know how to give you all these figures
without consuming a great deal of time.
The high figure was Montgomery County
for $82,000.
The significant thing is this. We had Mr.
Willard Morris, President of Election Offi-
cials in Maryland speak to our Committee.
We asked him in essence if this were an
accurate figure in Montgomery County and
his answer in essence was, no, it was not.
We have a transcript of that discussion.
He indicated to us that the figures many
people turned over for this computation
that resulted in the $750,000 total figure
were one-half the actual figure.
This is a very vague area. All we can
say is that the majority does not have a
clear picture of the cost, nor does the
minority. We do know it costs money and
we do know it costs more statewide than
$750,000 and more in each one of the
counties than has been indicated on the
chart.
We have received correspondence from
certain officials in Montgomery County who
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