The bill is being considered in a three day special session. If approved in the Senate, the bill would be placed on the ballot in the Nov. 3 general election.

Proponents and opponents argued Monday during a special session to discuss the bill.

Sen. Steve Hershey, the state Senate’s minority leader, was blunt in his assessment of the Democrats supporting the bill.

“They鈥檙e looking for a way to cheat. They鈥檙e going to ask the voters if they鈥檒l vote in favor of a constitutional amendment so they can redraw the maps to eliminate the only Republican voice we have in the Congress,” Hershey said.

Hershey was referring to Rep. Andy Harris, who holds the House seat in the state鈥檚 1st District and is the lone Republican in Maryland’s congressional delegation.

Democrat Sen. Cheryl Kagan rejected Hershey鈥檚 description, saying, 鈥淚t was Donald Trump who started this whole Pandora鈥檚 Box of a slippery slope down to the bottom.鈥�

“Texas started, followed by other Republican states, so Democrats had to get in the battle,” Kagan said.

“Two wrongs don鈥檛 make a right, and we have been opposed to any type of mid-cycle redistricting whether it鈥檚 Republican states or Democrat states,鈥� Hershey said.

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Gov. Wes Moore has offered a plan that would provide expedited admissions and an $800 credit to attend a University System of Maryland (USM) school for Howard University students who were notified weeks before planning to move in that they were no longer enrolled.

Maryland Higher Education Secretary Elena Quiroz-Livanis said that currently there’s no deadline for applications, but told 黑料不打烊, “I would encourage students and families to reach out sooner rather than later.”

“The sooner they contact the Office of Student Financial Assistance, the sooner we can connect them to university officials to make sure that we have a place for them here in Maryland,” Quiroz-Livanis said. “The takeaway here is do not wait, contact us as soon as possible.”

Bowie State University, like Howard, is an HBCU that is encouraging displaced Howard students to apply as well. The school is also part of the University System of Maryland.

“We have opportunities for them to choose and select any major of their choice,” Mitchel Kabia-Williams, Bowie State’s interim vice president for enrollment management and student affairs, told 黑料不打烊.

Kabia-Williams said his office is working to make the transition as seamless as possible for students who decide to enroll.

“We do have a supportive staff, supportive faculty and it is a family culture,” he said, adding that student housing is currently waitlisted, though a new facility is expected to open in the spring.

Jaelyn Bull, a rising senior at Bowie State, also encouraged the Howard students to consider what other HBCUs have to offer.

Bull said Bowie State wasn’t her first choice. She said her dream school was Drexel University, and she got in, but the cost remained out of reach even after financial aid offers.

Instead, she enrolled at Bowie State.

“I got exactly what I wanted here at Bowie,” Bull said. “You can get whatever kind of experience you want. It doesn’t only have to be the Howard experience.”

Bull said she understands Howard’s appeal for many students. Her mother is a Howard alum.

Referring to Howard’s reputation as “the Mecca,” Bull said, “I grew up learning about the Mecca and hearing about the Mecca.”

But she said, people don’t seem to realize that “every HBCU has their own unique story and own unique history, and there’s so much of that here at Bowie, that you won’t feel like you are missing out on this Mecca experience.”

“Howard is a great school, but it’s not the end of the line,” Bull said.

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And while their owners are enjoying the annual public safety and community-building block parties, the Alexandria Police Department hopes they will sign up for .

The program, which launched earlier this year, encourages dog owners to take note of what’s going on in their neighborhoods and report suspicious activity or non-emergency issues such as damaged streetlights to city officials.

“We want to kind of continue to expand upon that to ensure that our residents know, No. 1, that they have a say-so in how we police this community,” Alexandria Police Chief Tarrick McGuire told 黑料不打烊. “Secondly, we want them to know that they can take the activity of walking a dog” and create a safer community.

People who sign up for the program are discouraged from intervening when they see something suspicious, but are urged to contact the appropriate city agencies.

“We’re absolutely not asking people to be the police, but what we are asking is people to be partners of the police,” McGuire said.

Caitlin Leach, president of the Del Ray Citizens Association, said the program is a natural fit for her neighborhood.

“Del Ray is a really walkable neighborhood with a strong sense of community and is very dog friendly, so we are happy to help raise awareness and have members of the community bring their dogs along,” she said

Dog walkers taking part in Del Rey’s National Night Out event, one of , will walk with McGuire at 6:30 p.m. They’ll meet at Pat Miller Neighborhood Square at 2311 Mount Vernon Ave.

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The move comes after Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich instituted a six-month moratorium in an executive order in June.

Council member Evan Glass, who supported forming a task force to study the issue, said he continues to believe that should have been done at the county level, but said before voting in favor of the moratorium, “We have to get this right, and what we’re doing today is one step towards that.”

Council member Will Jawando, who had pushed for a two-year moratorium, said during the 18-month pause, “We’re not just going to be twiddling our thumbs.”

Jawando said the council would take a look at a number of issues, “noise, water usage, the Potomac River, one that I’ve been pushing really hard on and I’ll mention every time, tax rates.”

The council also approved a zoning text amendment that lays out the definition of what constitutes a data center.

“The fact that we had already data centers existing in Montgomery County, but had no definition of a data center in our code, was a big problem,” council member Dawn Luedtke told her colleagues.

She also said that she felt it was important to acknowledge that there are currently data centers in the county because, “We are not going to do things that shut existing data centers down.”

In approving the moratorium Tuesday, Council President Natali Fani-Gonz谩lez said, “We need more information, especially from the state.”

Fani-Gonz谩lez was referring to a study on the potential impact of data centers being conducted by the Department of the Environment, the Maryland Energy Administration and the University of Maryland School of Business. The Department of Legislative Services will submit the final report to Gov. Wes Moore and the General Assembly by Sept. 1.

The passage of the bill, which goes into effect when signed into law, was called “disappointing” in a statement from Atmosphere CEO Chuck McBride. Atmosphere has been working through the county’s planning process to place a data center in Dickerson in the county’s agricultural reserve. The land was previously the home of a coal-fired power plant that had been decommissioned in 2020.

Chris Baughman, chief platform and sustainability officer for Atmosphere, told 黑料不打烊 in light of the council action, “It does not look like we can proceed at this moment.”

“We’re going to take time right now to evaluate it carefully to see what the next steps are,” he added.

Baughman said it’s not possible to say exactly what the next steps might be for Atmosphere.

“These changes do have real consequences when you have delays like this with long lead times for power infrastructure and equipment,” he said.

When mentioning long lead times, he was referring to how long it can take to obtain power transformers, which he said could go between 12 and 36 months to access.

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The efforts are, in part, a response to the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program results, tests that are given each year.

Tenette Smith, chief academic officer for the Maryland State Department of Education, told the state school board Tuesday that the state is working with local school districts to provide them with support systems, “high quality instructional materials” and professional learning and coaching.

One of the programs Smith outlined is the Maryland School Leadership Academy.

“It’s a statewide leadership network that supports all of these three priorities,” Smith said. “This academy aims to develop a pipeline of transformational leaders across five regions.”

So far, 500 school leaders 鈥� principals, assistant principals and those school staffers who want to get into school leadership 鈥� have gone through the training academy. Applications are being taken for the next cohort, Smith said.

Smith said the Maryland State Department of Education is also releasing “our parent guides for student literacy supports, which are now available online.”

The guides are intended to “support parents who are looking for resources and tools to use to help their kiddos.”

Trish Brennan-Gac, executive director of Maryland Reads, a statewide organization that advocates for reading improvements in schools, said, “We are in a reading crisis, and our reading proficiency rates are nowhere where we need them to be.”

But she said that Maryland State Superintendent Carey Wright has been moving the state in the right direction.

“We have a superintendent who is rebuilding our agency. This is a process we are in the middle of 鈥� we are not done rebuilding our systems, and yet we are seeing positive change,” Brennan-Gac said.

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During the new school year, students’ cellphones will have to be put away all day from the start bell to the dismissal bell. They will not be permitted to use them between classes or during lunch periods.

Peter Moran, chief of schools for Montgomery County Public Schools, told members of the county council’s that the policy would be included in the upcoming Student Code of Conduct rule book for the 2026-27 school year.

Moran said the decision to implement the policy this year, ahead of when the state law takes effect next year, was so that students and school officials could “go through the learning process as a community.”

He also cited the feedback shared by principals and teachers that noted since middle schools introduced bell-to-bell phone restrictions, student performance improved.

“You could draw correlation from just the conversations with principals and with teachers that we’ve seen academic achievement in some key areas go up. And when asked what the lever was that was utilized to do that, many people said not allowing cellphones in math classes, not allowing cellphones in English classes,” Moran said.

The chief emphasized that the consequences for violating the policy aren’t being designed to be punitive.

“The philosophy that we’re taking is really that this is a learning opportunity for students. A lot of this is going to be conference-based with students and with parents so that they understand the rationale for the decision, how it’s impacting their learning, why we’re asking them to do this; as opposed to moving to a punitive measure for a student that’s having a difficult time separating from their technology,” he said.

Removing distractions

The school system has also decided to move ahead with the policy because many students have noted how distracting cellphones and tablets can be.

Moran noted, however, that there is some anxiety linked to keeping phones out of the hands of students all day.

“One student said to me, ‘When I have my cellphone in my pocket, I have my mom in my pocket. I have my brothers in my pocket. I have my friends in my pocket. And if I take it out of my pocket, I don’t have access to them,'” Moran said.

Moran said the school system would work with students and parents on the issues surrounding safety and security, and was honest about the potentially “challenging” rollout ahead of the school district.

“It’s going to be more about learning and talking with students and talking with families as we go through this transitional year,” he added.

Looking ahead to the new school year, Moran said feedback from other school systems included the advice that teachers and staff may find themselves having to get used to more noise at lunch, for example.

“Because students are actually talking to one another, as opposed to their faces down in classrooms, you’re going to have more spirited debates, spirited discourse because students actually have their heads up,” Moran said.

Implementing the policy

How and where students would be expected to store their phones is still an open question. In some schools, students place their phones in cubbies in the classroom. Moran said that the reports are it has worked out well.

In other schools, pouches are used. Sometimes, the students keep the locked pouches with them and, in other cases, phones are placed in the secured pouches when entering the building, then retrieved by students at the end of the day.

While the school system works to implement the new policy ahead of the , it is also addressing the tech-related issue of screen time by conducting an audit.

Kimberly Fields, chief technology officer for MCPS, explained at the education committee meeting Monday that the school system would be conducting an audit of screentime for grades K-8.

“We are going to be performing a comprehensive review of it. We’re also going to be taking a look at our content internet filtering,” Fields said.

Council member Kristin Mink asked about content made available for classroom use that purports to be educational, but in reality, seems to听“mostly be about providing kids with a game.”

Mink said she was concerned that there are times when teachers are trying to provide individual attention to small groups and allow other students to use some of those apps to work on their own.

In those cases, Moran said, “It’s being used as a management tool” rather than an educational program.

“And if it’s being used as a management tool,” Moran said, “then it shouldn’t be utilized at all.”

Fields said the audit would also include an examination of the filters on Chromebooks and other equipment provided to students.

“We know that we do have students that (say) ‘we’re going to challenge this and circumvent the system and find a different way to get through it,'” she said.

Fields said there would also be a review of the suitability and relevance of some of those programs.

In asking about tech security, Council member Shebra Evans said, “Let me ask a question; we haven’t had a cybersecurity attack,” then stopped herself and rapped on the council dias, and said, “Knock on wood!”

That prompted laughter and Evans then continued her question, “Is there a plan that you have in place that, in the event that something happens, you already have something kind of laid out to put into motion?”

Fields answered, “Now that is what keeps you up at night.”

“We do have internal emergency-preparedness plans in the event of something happening,” Fields said, adding that there are periodic checks and tabletop exercises. “This isn’t something where you just say, ‘Hey, we’re done with it and then put it away.'”

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“I would love for there to never be mistakes in student communications, but sometimes it happens,” Tisa Silver Canady, founder and executive director of the Maryland Center for Collegiate Financial Wellness, told 黑料不打烊.

Silver Canady said that while distressing, getting a message from a college or university that there’s a problem with tuition or room and board payments “is not something that necessarily means your dream is over,” or that a student will have to go to another school.

“It doesn’t always mean that.”

What it does mean, she said, is that the student and family should contact the financial aid office immediately.

“Critical information is coming from the financial aid office,” Silver Canady said. “The financial aid website 鈥� I know a lot of people are intimidated by it because it’s content heavy 鈥� but if you don’t get into it now and start to develop an understanding and start asking questions about it, then you’ll set yourself up for these sometimes disruptive events like unenrollment.”

Families should make sure they are getting all the emails and communications from the financial aid office and the bursar’s office at their child’s school, she said. That way they can avoid surprises should an updated invoice go to a spam file, for example.

Families should also be prepared to have their financial information easily accessible.

“The number of times that they’re going to need to re-up this process of financial aid is 鈥� at a standard 鈥� going to be twice a year: once per semester and then an additional time if they choose to enroll in special sessions like summer or winter,” Silver Canady said.

Becoming comfortable with understanding how to finance a college education should start in high school, and Silver Canady encouraged families to visit the U.S. Department of Education’s for college.

“One thing that I tell students and families a lot is, there’s a big difference between financial literacy and financial aid literacy,” she said. “And when you are on a campus, that’s when that financial aid literacy has got to start beefing up.”

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Montgomery County鈥檚 Public Safety Training Academy graduated 37 new police officers and sheriff鈥檚 deputies who were sworn in during a ceremony Thursday in Rockville, Maryland.

The new class of law enforcement officers enters policing at a time when competition for new hires is fierce and trust for the profession in some communities is low.

The current climate is one of the reasons newly sworn Montgomery County Police Officer Alfredo Hernandez said he is joining the force.

鈥淭here is not a better time to serve than now,鈥� Hernandez said. 鈥淚 speak Spanish, I speak English, I鈥檓 bilingual, I have years of life experience under my belt, which I feel like will be a great asset to this department.鈥�

He grew up in Rockville, attended Wootton High School, and said his police academy class is a reflection of the community.

鈥淲e are very diverse,鈥� Hernandez said. 鈥淲e have many different officers from many different backgrounds, we speak many different languages and we鈥檙e here to serve the community.鈥�

Members of the 2026 class will join agencies including the Montgomery County Sheriff鈥檚 Office, Gaithersburg City Police, Rockville City Police, Takoma Park Police and the Maryland-National Capital Park Police.

The bulk of the graduating class, 21 officers, will serve in Montgomery County鈥檚 police department.

Police Chief Marc Yamada said recruitment efforts have paid off, and that鈥檚 due in part to the opportunities that the department offers.

He also agreed with Hernandez that gaining and keeping the public’s trust is especially important at this time.

鈥淚t鈥檚 almost talked about every day, either in the academy, on the street or in my office,鈥� Yamada said.

鈥淚f you caught me in my other uniform, I have a pin on my uniform 鈥� one of only a couple that I wear 鈥� that says 鈥榯rust.鈥欌��

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“By 5th grade boys are already starting to show a disinterest,” Virginia Del. Josh Thomas said. “Our boys are 1.5 times more likely to drop out and never complete high school due to lack of interest, which is kind of a new trend that we haven’t seen before.”

Thomas chairs the newly formed Virginia Boys and Men Advisory Commission, which held its first meeting Monday. The data was supplied by the American Institute for Boys and Men in a presentation to the commission July 20.

“I think one of the solutions that we heard about on Monday that has garnered a lot of interest and is certainly of interest to me, is getting more men in the classroom,” Thomas said. “It’s kind of hard to see where you can be in the world if you don’t see yourself there.”

But the solution won’t end with recruitment, Thomas said.

“Our retention is not great either. Even once we get them in the classroom, men are much more likely to leave the classroom in the first four years,” he said.

Thomas said he’s calling for “a permanent shift in how Virginia is going to address staffing and educational posts throughout our public education system.”

One of the bright sides in the effort, Thomas said, is the bipartisan interest in providing better outcomes for Virginia’s boys and men.

“I can pick up the phone and call my colleagues in the Virginia Statehouse and within two minutes they said, ‘We’re in!'” Thomas said.

The next meeting of the commission is slated for Aug. 25. The first report from the body is due in October.

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The three-member Economic Development Committee voted unanimously to suggest the moratorium to the full council.

Later Wednesday, the council’s Planning, Housing and Parks Committee voted to adopt definitions of data centers, specifying that a large data center would be a facility with energy demand of at least 25 megawatts.

The votes come ahead of Tuesday’s meeting of the full 11-member council where both issues will be considered.

The county is currently under a six-month data center moratorium created by an executive order from Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich.

“These are important issues for our county’s future and we need to get the policy right before any permits are finalized. I look forward to seeing progress on this front,” Elrich said.

Earlier this month, the Prince George’s County Council passed a two-year moratorium on hyperscale data center development.

Council member Will Jawando, who had proposed a two-year moratorium on data centers, said he supports the 18-month proposal, and will withdraw his bill calling for the longer pause on the controversial facilities.

Jawando, who sits on the Planning, Housing and Parks Committee, has suggested examining how data centers could be taxed in Montgomery County.

“I was talking with our colleagues in Loudoun County, who just last year got authority to change the property tax rate from the state legislature to charge a 4% tax rate on data centers,” Jawando said.

“Right now, as I’ve mentioned, a data center would pay the same property tax rate as your single-family home, which is not appropriate.”

Council member Evan Glass, who sits on the Economic Development Committee, had previously proposed forming a task force to study the potential impacts of data centers on the county and asked the committee to consider the move as part of its work.

“I know firsthand that all of us have been engaged and have been texted and tweeted and emailed and phone called and Facebooked, but that is not a public conversation,” Glass said.

Council President Natali Fani-Gonz谩lez, who chairs the committee, rejected the proposal.

“When the time is right, there will be a public hearing, there will be work sessions as the process moves forward.”

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Montgomery County police Sgt. Elijah Kinser was joined at a news conference Tuesday by members of Wegayehou’s family.

Her son, Nate Tinbite, described Wegayehou as an avid walker and called her a 鈥渨alking angel.鈥�

鈥淪omeone took the person we love most in this world and drove away as if she were nothing,鈥� Tinbite said, urging anyone with information to come forward. 鈥淲hat feels small and uncertain to you could be the piece that brings us answers.”

Wegayehou was struck at roughly 1 p.m. on June 19 while crossing the intersection of Crestmoor Drive and Colesville Road.

Police said the location is in what they call a 鈥渉igh-injury network鈥� with a number of collisions involving cars, not pedestrians.

鈥淪peed seems to be a pretty big factor in that area,鈥� Kinser said.

And while there are traffic cameras in the area of the crash, Kinzer said they are designed to monitor traffic conditions, not capture crimes.听Neighboring doorbell cameras have not yielded good video either, because the homes are set on hillsides.

However, Kinser said, some of the best footage was captured by a community member. It shows a dark colored SUV that police believe is a 2009-2014 Lexus RX 350.

Kinser said it鈥檚 possible someone has information they may not realize could provide answers to a grieving family.

He also made a direct appeal to the driver.

“If you鈥檙e listening 鈥� you鈥檝e lived with this for a month. But so has Hanna鈥檚 family,鈥� Kinzer said.

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According to , there were 213 traffic fatalities statewide as of July 20. By the same day in 2025, there were 252 deaths.

In the state’s two largest counties, Prince George’s recorded 40 traffic deaths year to date. Montgomery County had 28.

“Prince George’s County typically has more fatalities than Montgomery County does, largely because of the volume of traffic that goes through the population; it’s a little bit bigger of a county, so there’s more exposure,” said Tim Kearns, the director of the Maryland Highway Safety Office at the state Motor Vehicle Administration. “There’s more opportunities for people to be involved in motor vehicle crashes.”

In Prince George’s County, 15 of the 40 traffic fatalities involved impaired drivers.

Officials have noticed “a little bit of reduction” in fatalities around roads with work zones, speed feedback signs and speed cameras, Kearns said.

“Anything that we can do, along with messaging, automated enforcement, and having our law enforcement partners on the street, just so they know we’re out there, and that they can see that speed does kill,” he said.听

State officials are working with law enforcement and local governments to keep the downward trend going.

“To get better messages out there about how everybody needs to not drive impaired and to plan for a safe ride home is obviously one of our key goals,” he said.

Kearns also noted the number of fatalities where seat belts were not worn.

“Typically, failure to wear a seat belt contributes to about half of the fatalities in an occupant vehicle for a motor vehicle crash. It’s one of the main reasons that people are killed when they’re involved in a crash,” Kearns said.

Speed is another common factor that leads to more road deaths.

Maryland recently launched a public service campaign urging drivers to “Slow the Fast Down,” noting that excessive speed contributes to nearly one-third of all deadly crashes statewide.

The provocative language of the campaign has gotten attention, said Kearns.

“We have noticed more feedback on our social media posts, and people have noticed it. So whether they’re in favor of it or whether they think it’s a little bit risky for that kind of message to be out there, it is getting attention, and it is getting attention of the folks who’s the demographic that we’re trying to reach,” he said.

That includes drivers between the ages of 21 and 34 who are, according to the data, involved in more high-speed crashes.

“We really need to make sure that we’re looking out for each other. We’re looking twice for pedestrians. We’re looking twice for motorcyclists. We’re making sure that we’re aware of our surroundings, aware of our speeds, wearing our seat belts,” Kearns said.

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The county is also working with the Maryland State Highway Administration to lower the speed limit on five urban and suburban corridors that are jointly maintained by the county and state, including Montrose Road and Josiah Henson Parkway in North Bethesda and Darnestown Road in Rockville.

A 2021 state law authorized Montgomery County to drop maximum speeds to 20 mph on local roads and to 15 mph in rare instances.

The roads jointly maintained by the county and the state will see speed limits drop to between 25 and 35 mph. Signs alerting drivers to the new speeds will be posted by the end of August, the county said.

In addition, Montgomery County is working with the state to make high-crash corridors “safer by design,” Wade Holland, the county’s Vision Zero coordinator, said.听

“Right now, under construction is New Hampshire Avenue near the Beltway between Montgomery and Prince George’s County, which is one of the high-crash corridors, not only for Montgomery County and Prince George’s County, but the entire state,” he told 黑料不打烊.

The state will be working on Montrose Road in North Bethesda, parts of University Boulevard West, Montgomery Village Avenue and stretches of Randolph Road later this year, Holland said.

Holland said efforts to reduce crashes, and especially cut the number of traffic fatalities, also include public education and enforcement campaigns aimed at changing behaviors.

“We still see too many crashes involving people not wearing their seat belts, they’re speeding, they’re driving while distracted, they are impaired by alcohol or drugs,” he said.

The majority of neighborhood speed limit reductions followed resident requests. The speed limits are decided upon after analysis that includes the road’s location and design, Holland said.

The emphasis on speed has to do with survivability in a crash, Holland said.

“When you get to that 35听to 40 mph听speed limit, if you strike a pedestrian or cyclist, that pedestrian or cyclist has a 50/50 chance of surviving,” he said.听“Even a small car can do a lot of damage to people if you’re speeding or reckless.”

A and of all the speed limit changes are on the county’s website.

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At his weekly briefing, County Executive Marc Elrich highlighted the work of the, in which young people in 17 schools across the county help their peers address issues that matter most to them.

“The program operates on the belief that youth-led efforts are uniquely powerful because students are uniquely connected to their peers and understand the contemporary challenges they face,” Elrich said.

Kameron Pondexter, the Theona program administrator, said more than 700 participants have been trained since 2022 in life-saving overdose response techniques. The program’s youth ambassadors have also put in more than 2,000 student service-learning hours on a variety of projects 鈥� such as health and wellness kits and promoting peace in their communities.

“We are proud of the impact our ambassadors have made, and we’re excited to continue growing a generation of young leaders who are creating positive change in their schools and communities,” she said.

Sarah Insa Sadio, a rising senior at Albert Einstein High School, explained that during the COVID-19 pandemic, she and other girls her age found themselves undergoing puberty in isolation. On top of that, social media emphasized idealized looks and lifestyles.

“It ultimately just fed into our insecurities,” she said.

As a BtheOne teen ambassador, Insa Sadio said she’s worked with other teens finding positive spaces that offer a safe, judgment-free zone.

“Mostly, something that we’ve come to appreciate now is how accounts celebrate traits, talents, and health outside of physical appearance, highlighting that your body isn’t doesn’t represent you,” she said.

To promote better mental health, Insa Sadio encourages others to take a tech break whenever possible.

“Try to go outside, have a conversation with a stranger, or maybe go outside, drive around, listen to music. Just limit your screen time and technology, and find other strategies to satisfy yourself and your brain, and to allow your brain to relax,” she said.

Monica Martin, who serves as the chief of behavioral Health and crisis services in the county’s Department of Health and Human Services, said consistently high teen screen use is associated with self-harm and poor cognitive outcomes.

The good news, she said, is parental monitoring can help reduce those risks. So can reinforcement from peers.

“When teens support each other in saying no to screen time and helping each other participate in alternative activities and healthy coping strategies and spread awareness that can save lives,” Martin said.

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They also spoke to 黑料不打烊 about the systems that make voting secure in their jurisdictions and in other states.

“First of all, paper ballots can’t be hacked, right?” Maryland elections administrator Jared DeMarinis said. “Like we are a paper ballot state; everyone votes on a paper ballot.”

On the machines that tabulate the results, “We do logic and accuracy testing prior to each election, which is for public observation,” DeMarinis said.

And after each election, the Maryland State Board of Elections runs audits to verify the accuracy of the count.

In Virginia, which is holding its primary election on Aug. 4, Samantha Alfaro, the communications manager for Loudoun County’s Office of Elections, said the decentralized nature of the nation’s election system is “a feature of our democracy.”

“I would say the fact that states, localities, cities all have different voting equipment makes elections secure,” Alfaro said.

Votes are recorded and counted on different equipment in states, cities and counties.

“I would say that voters in Loudoun County and Virginia and this country as well can depend on the election process,” she said.听

Alfaro also stressed that counting machines are not connected into the internet.

“All they do is count your ballot,” she said.听

Even so, there are continual checks to make sure election data is secured.

“We take cybersecurity very seriously, DeMarinis said. “It’s a top priority of my administration at the Board of Elections. Here, we are constantly monitoring our sites and systems for any bad actors.”

Public participation beyond the ballot box

Serving as an election officer is one way to learn more about the process firsthand.

DeMarinis said it takes what he called an “army” of citizens to help run elections, noting that the state hires roughly 26,000 election judges when voters head to the polls.

Similarly, in Virginia, “our elections are run by your friends and neighbors, so the person who’s checking you in at your precinct might be your neighbor or your kid’s teacher or the person who works at Trader Joe’s and is bagging your groceries,” Alfaro said.

Maryland and Virginia elections also provide for observers. The canvassing process, where the votes are processed and tabulated, is open to the public.

“That’s why we publicize when they are going to occur,” said DeMarinis.

The question of Maryland’s voter rolls

Earlier in July, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division threatened DeMarinis and elections officials in other states with criminal charges.

DeMarinis’ letter arrived after the agency lost a bid to force Maryland to turn over its voter records.

“There’s a lot of talk about, I guess, the SAVE Act and noncitizens on our rolls, and again, it’s just not true,” he said.听

“When they talk about wanting all these lists, it’s nothing more than a fishing expedition for mythical systematic evildoers that just again, don’t exist,” he said. “It’s more like the ‘Odyssey’ than reality.”

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