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"Signs point to record turnout," trumpeted the newspaper headlines. Elections officials expected a tsunami of voters drawn to polling places by the "historic" election. Experts predicted an 85 percent turnout shattering Maryland's 81 percent voter turnout in 1992. But it didn't happen.

Instead, Maryland's voter turnout (with Election Day and most absentees counted) was 75 percent, a lot less than the 2004 turnout (78 percent) and about even with the 2000 turnout (75 percent). So chalk up The Great 2008 Voter Surge as another media myth unrelated to reality.

True, there were 327,275 new voter registrations in Maryland since 2004 (a 10.5 percent increase). But the resulting "new voter" media hype ignored the fact that this increase was actually less than the 390,004 new registrations between 2000 and 2004 (a 14.4 percent increase). So the 2008 tsunami warnings were unwarranted.

What was newsworthy was the disparity in new registrations. Between 2004 and 2008, Maryland's Democrats added 229,569 new voters (+13.4 percent) while the Republicans gained a mere 20,305 new voters (+2.2 percent). Call it the "Bush Effect."

But the age-old problem with voter registration efforts is that getting people to register is easy, getting them to vote is almost impossible. In this year's election, 327,278 new voters were on Maryland's registration rolls (+10.5 percent) but only 156,076 additional votes were cast (+6.5 percent). This is what makes people who run voter registration drives want to cry.

Look at Baltimore city where 61,156 new voters registered since 2004 (+20 percent) but only 21,765 additional votes were cast (+10 percent). The same is true for Montgomery County with 40,506 new registrations (+7.8 percent) but only 8,858 new votes cast (+2.1 percent).

Of course Baltimore and Montgomery have very different turn-out rates: Montgomery County usually leads the state (76 percent in 2008) while Baltimore is usually last (65 percent in 2008). In fact, Baltimore is typically out-voted by Anne Arundel County, which has 127,000 less residents and 38,705 less voters than the city but this election cast 16,531 more votes than Baltimore. Baltimore, with 11.4 percent of Maryland's population accounted for only 9.3 percent of Maryland's vote this election.

Meanwhile, Prince Georges County's voting pattern ran counter to Baltimore's and Montgomery's. Instead of under-voting its new registrations, Prince George's over-voted them. Since 2004, Prince George's has added 30,799 new voters (+6.6 percent) but in this election the county cast 44,650 additional votes (+14 percent). Call it the "Obama Effect." Prince George's had a 73 percent voter turnout compared to Baltimore's 65 percent turnout.

Ideological cleansing

Maryland has eight congressional districts. Before 2002, Maryland's congressional delegation was evenly split; four Democrats and four Republicans. To cure that problem, Gov. Parris Glendenning and the Democratic legislature redrew the district boundaries to eliminate two Republicans by concentrating most of Maryland's conservative voters in the Sixth District (Western Maryland) and the First District (Eastern Shore and parts of the Western Shore).

In other words, the Democrats conceded the Republicans those two districts and, then, gerrymandered the other two GOP districts adding enough new Democratic voters to defeat the incumbent Republicans.

It worked, sort of. A Democrat, Chris Van Hollen, defeated Republican Congresswoman Connie Morella in the new, Democrat-laden Eighth District, and Republican Congressman Bob Ehrlich abandoned his new, re-election-challenged Second District and, instead, ran for governor. True, the Democrats captured Ehrlich's congressional district, but they also ended up with Ehrlich as governor.

Fast forward to 2008 when the Maryland Republicans decide that since they can't defeat the Democrats, they'll defeat each other. First, state Sen. Andy Harris knocks off Republican Congressman Wayne Gilchrest in the First District primary; then Gilchrest endorses Harris' Democratic foe, Frank Kratovil, who wins an upset victory.

Remember that back in the 2002 gerrymandering the Democrats conceded the First District to the GOP, yet now it's represented by an O'Malley-Hoyer-Obama Democrat. You can't make this stuff up!

The GOP committed suicide in pursuit of ideological cleansing: Congressman Gilchrest was too liberal and, frankly, relished being a RINO (Republican in name only). So the remnants of the Maryland Republican Party unseated him only to lose the district to a Democrat.

But wait, there's a Maryland precedent for this political kamikaze act — and it's on the other side of the aisle. For decades the Sixth District (Western Maryland) was safely Democratic, thanks to the Byron family's inherited title to the seat.

Congresswoman Beverly Byron, whose husband and in-laws previously held the seat, was a conservative Democrat who represented her district's ideology and won repeated victories by wide margins. But the dissatisfied Democratic liberals ran Frederick Del. Tom Hattery against her in 1992, unseating her by 6,525 votes. The liberals were wild with excitement until the general election when the liberal, Hattery, was soundly beaten (by 25,659 votes) by arch conservative Republican Roscoe Bartlett who's been there ever since.

Which simply proves that there are elements in both political parties who are dumb as hell.

Blair Lee is CEO of the Lee Development Group in Silver Spring.