If you received and found strange — or a little creepy — that “voting report card” from the nonprofit Center for Voter Information in Virginia, the man in charge of the mailing says it was not meant to intimidate, but to apply a little “social pressure” to get you or your neighbors to vote.

The cards show whether you voted in the past four general elections and whether two of your neighbors did. No names are mentioned; the cards do not say who you or your neighbors voted for because that’s not public record. The mailing was meant to be a nudge, says Tom Lopach, president and CEO of the Center for Voter Information. He likened the CVI mailing to reports from utility companies that compare our energy usage with that of neighbors. “The single most effective tool at increasing voter turnout is social pressure,” Lopach says. “If this is the most effective tool to increase voter turnout, especially with underrepresented populations, then it’s a tool we should be using.”

But late Thursday, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown sent a cease-and-desist letter to the CVI to stop the mailing of the “report card” because, in addition to reporting on voting in previous elections, it “threatens to publicly expose those registered voters who do not vote in this year’s election.” That, Brown says, is a form of intimidation. It appears that shaming someone into voting violates state law.

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For the record: Maryland has 10 electoral votes in the presidential election, one for each member of Congress from the state. There are 10 Democrats, 10 Republicans and, Maryland being one of 48 winner-take-all states, the electors vote for the candidate that wins the popular vote here. “Basically, the electors vote as they’re told,” says Gerard Magliocca, a law professor at Indiana University who has been researching electors in each state. “In 2016, a few [in states other than Maryland] did not do so, and so more states passed laws providing penalties for that.” The Electoral College process is required by the Constitution, but needs to go the way of the powdered wig. It has accorded too much power to just a few swing states and resulted in two candidates within 16 years (George W. Bush and Donald Trump) becoming president despite losing the popular vote.

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Following up: Remember the hysteria about squeegee guys in the streets of Baltimore and the outrage over Mayor Brandon Scott’s plan to find a sustainable solution rather than criminalize squeegee work? You don’t hear it much these days, and for good reason: After a summer spike in complaints about squeegee guys trying to wash windshields at city intersections, the number of calls has dropped significantly again, according to the October report from the Squeegee Collaborative. Meanwhile, the Mayor’s Office of African American Male Engagement continues outreach to nearly 150 boys and young men who need help getting back to school or finding a job. There’s a seldom-heard word for this: encouraging.

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A shame: Washington College dropped its familiar logo — the cursive signature of George Washington — for something easier to read and boring. They could have just cleaned up George’s handwriting a bit — his “s” looked like an “f” — and none but nerds would have noticed.

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Invasive fish watch: Baltimore Sun reader Dottie Doepke reports that the Weis market in Fullerton Plaza has snakehead filets for sale. But for $14.99 a pound? Glad to see it on ice anywhere, but I suggest either catching your own or cultivating relationships with the intrepid snakehead hunters of Dundee Creek; they’ll trade the whole fish for a six-pack of beer.

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Following up: Readers might recall Bassam Nasser, manager of operations in Gaza for Catholic Relief Services. I first met him in 2018 during his visit to CRS headquarters in Baltimore. I’ve heard from him a couple of times since Israel’s devastating attacks on Hamas and Gaza, though he’s careful not to state his whereabouts. In his most recent email, Nasser shared some recent observations about children he encountered during a relief project in the southern Gaza Strip:

“A group of children [were] preparing to head to the Mediterranean Sea for what they called their daily bath. Curious, I asked who among them was the best swimmer, and then moved on to the classic question for kids: ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’

“Silence. I thought perhaps they hadn’t heard me or were too shy. I repeated the question, and one of them confirmed they understood perfectly. Yet, none of the five children answered. I gathered my thoughts and tried to lighten the mood by sharing what I dreamed of becoming when I was their age.

“The conversation took an unexpected turn. The children, with remarkable seriousness, began to ask me about my expectations for their future. How could they think of growing up when they had no home, no school and no certainty of survival? I found myself grasping for hope, advocating for a future I couldn’t fully assure them of, assuming it might somehow be better.

“These five children have been forced into daily responsibilities that include fetching water at dawn, selling bread their mothers bake, collecting firewood for cooking, and repairing their fragile shelters — what they call their ‘tents.’ They carry jerry cans of water for their mothers, [treat] their skin diseases by scratching with sea sand, all while living under the constant threat of airstrikes. When I asked them if they were afraid of bombings, their response was chillingly unified: If it happens, they would rather be killed outright than survive with injuries or amputations.

“I circled back to the earlier question about the swimming champ. To my surprise, all the children agreed: The best swimmer was a girl among them. With her sunburned face, she smiled and confirmed, ‘I’m their lifeguard.’”