Despite big crowds all over the state this morning, the polls in Chevy Chase, Bethesda and Silver Spring are currently experiencing small or non-existent lines and wait times.  As I visited area precincts, I saw very few youth voters.  There were longer lines at all of the area Starbucks locations (perhaps all those early morning voters are now going in for their free cup of coffee?)  

Students at the University of Maryland were bribed with free breakfast to come out start things off early in the hopes of alleviating the lines expected later today.  Organizers were pleased to report that they were wiped out of food completely by the student voters who were out in full force.  

So we’re down to just hours until this election will finally be decided.  And we have all been inundated with all kinds of propaganda and information trying to persuade us to vote one way or the other.   But more than ever this year, we were repeatedly reminded to register to vote.  From commercials to concerts to canvassers on the street, we were encouraged by what felt like every celebrity and every band to get registered.   So many of us take our right to vote for granted, but what if you not only couldn’t vote but had to be reminded of it everywhere you looked for an entire year?  Well Nakiya Vasi Schurman, a British citizen who has permanent residency in the United States, decided she couldn’t sit back and just do nothing.  So she decided to get in the game and volunteer for Barack Obama’s campaign, even though she knew she’d be sittin...

I’ve gotten used to seeing names that are familiar but different on my Facebook news feed.  With so many friends getting married this past summer, many new names have popped up with different middle and last names, combinations of new and old names and hyphens of all sorts.  And some are rendered totally unrecognizable, leading me to think that there’s a glitch, until I look at the profile and see the face of an old friend from high school behind a wedding veil.  But as of late, there have familiar but different names of a different kind.   And they all have one thing in common: Hussein. 

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As Maryland's voter registration deadline looms, the Terps Vote Coalition is taking their efforts to the streets with a door to door campaign to seek out new voters before it's too late.  Check it out here.

My brother, Justin, moved to Virginia less than a year ago but he’s still registered to vote in our home state of Connecticut.  Over the last week, I have been reminding him to transfer his registration so that he can vote at the polls on November 4th, especially since he’s in a state that hasn’t been color coded as blue or red just yet. 

For those of us who have registered in our home states, the idea of transferring your registration can easily slip your mind because hey, you already registered, right?  Of course there’s always absentee voting but as someone who had to cast her first presidential vote with a stamp in 2004, I can attest that it lea...

John McCain made a campaign stop in Maryland on Sunday.  He addressed the National Guard Association at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, Md.  While the main focus of the speech was his support for the National Guard and all branches of the United States Military, he did sidetrack for a moment to address last week’s financial news. 

McCain criticized Barack Obama for not laying out a specific plan to deal with the crisis.  He connected this “lack of leadership” to Iraq saying, “For a guy who talks so much about hope, he didn't hold out much hope for victory in Iraq. Instead, he commits the greater error of insisting that even in h...

The members of the Young Republicans Network (YRN) of Montgomery County admit that it’s not always easy being a Republican in a solid blue state.  I caught up with the group during a watch party that they held for John McCain’s acceptance speech at the BlackFinn Restaurant in Bethesda, Md.  It was difficult to conduct interviews with members without being interrupted by various Barack Obama supporters who wanted to make it known that this is Obama’s turf.  But despite the disruptions, the members of YRN stayed focused on their message about their support for McCain, an underdog here in Maryland.

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John McCain hasn't been getting too much credit for attracting the youth vote in this election. But that hasn't stopped Shandon Phan, 29, a law student at the University of Baltimore from pledging his support. Though McCain can thank Shandon's dad for that...

I caught up with Adam Scholl, a 17-year-old page and Heather Mizeur, a member of Maryland's House of Delegates and a superdelegate at this year's DNC before they headed to Denver.  See what they were excited about and what they expected at this year's convention here.

I am a procrastinator.  I know this is not a highly unusual ailment but it is one that has shaped my life since elementary school (when I would wait until the night before a book report was due to start reading page one of the assigned reading) all the way through to present day when this habit has actually contributed to the decline of a relationship (he couldn’t take the sound of me “hammering” the keyboard at 3 AM.)  

And while I need no excuse to procrastinate (Faceboo...