The state Board of Elections' Non-Technical Summary pretty much describes what Question 2, if approved by the electorate, would do. See http://www.elections.state.md.us/
But the ballot language, which is what voters in general will read, absolutely does not. Effectively, it's a misleading lie. The summary takes into account the enactment in the 2007 special session of Senate Bill 3, which spells out at great length the details of what would happen if the slots amendment proposed by Question 2 is approved. See http://mlis.state.md.us/2007s1/chapters_noln/Ch_4_sb0003E.pdf
The ballot language would deceive the voting public by leading them to believe that all revenue from the approved slots would go to our education system. The fact is that, for the first eight years of the program, less than half of the revenue would do so. In subsequent years, just over half would go for education. As you can see from a reading of the summary, substantial percentages of it are guaranteed to the slots operators and the horse racing industry. Smaller amounts of the slots revenue would go to local impact grants and the Small, Minority, and Women-Owned Businesses account. I expect the insertion of these two setasides made some legislators feel better about voting for a slots proposal that barely squeaked through to enactment. There's also an understandable setaside for the State Lottery Agency for costs of operation. But only after the comptroller is required to pay out all of these non-education setasides does the Education Trust Fund get anything. You'd have to read page 49 of Senate Bill 3 to see that.
I've already spelled out my opposition to Question 2 for reasons mentioned above in a letter printed in the Baltimore Sun on August 23 and I will try to do something similar in a letter to the local press in the near future.
If we truly desire to provide more funding for our public education system, I submit that we can easily do so by eliminating existing and contemplated funding of religious and other non-public schools and by, as Obama is suggesting at the national level, increasing taxes on those who can well afford to pay them: the very rich. I further submit that we do not need state-guaranteed subsidies to slots operators or the racing industry as a price for aid to our schools.
The slots question will surely be the most controversial matter statewide in Maryland this year. How groups stand on it might matter.