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With the November elections fast approaching in Maryland, voters must choose among a variety of candidates for state and local offices. The candidates most likely to win tend to be the incumbents, but there have also been instances in which, come Election Day, incumbents have found themselves beaten in the polls by the underdog.

                So how does Saqib Ali, a senior software engineer and first-time candidate for a position in the Maryland House of Delegates (District 39), plan to unseat one of the three incumbents in his district seeking re-election?

                “I have a very different perspective,” he said. Saqib believes his background and career will help him better serve the people than his competitors can. Saqib’s campaign experience has certainly been unique—he recently made national news after an anti-Muslim demonstrator protested against Saqib’s faith in front of the candidate’s house in Gaithersburg.

                The son of immigrant parents from India and Pakistan, Saqib is an Asian American and self-described “news junkie” who is “savvy about politics” and enjoys watching world news as well as “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” Saqib became an avid newsreader and developed strong political opinions as an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland, College Park.

“I asked my friends one day, ‘Hey, do any of you vote?’ And they said no, they don’t vote cause it doesn’t make a difference. I decided I’m going to be a little different, I’m going to go out there and vote…so I started voting and became an activist,” he said.

                After graduation, Saqib became heavily involved in Howard Dean’s presidential campaign and Congressman Chris Van Hollen’s re-election campaign. After his loss in the primaries, Saqib remembers Dean telling his volunteers to go home and run for local office, a message Saqib took to heart.

                Saqib decided to run for a seat in the House of Delegates last summer after establishing himself as a leader in the community and in the Democratic Party. Although Saqib does not have the experience in Annapolis that the incumbents have, he distinguishes himself in other ways.

                “As a member of the Asian community, I have a special sensitivity to Asian American issues,” he said, citing the importance of immigrant and civil rights issues to him. Saqib is the only District 39 candidate to be born to immigrant parents.

If elected, he will also be the only engineer in the General Assembly, which he said is significant because his profession has allowed him to see things differently from other lawmakers.

“As a software engineer, I understand computer databases and information technology and I believe large-scale data mining can be an invasion of our privacy,” he said, in reference to the commercial companies that collect massive amounts of data on their customers.

Saqib believes these practices could be damaging to consumers if the information falls into the wrong hands, which is why he wants to push for legislation to require these commercial companies to allow people to see what kind of information they have collected about them.

While Saqib shares similar political priorities with his Democratic opponents, he is quick to point out the differences between his background and the incumbents’. He does not accept campaign contributions from corporations or political action committees, yet he has raised $95,000 from individual contributors since September 2005.

Saqib’s major platforms include expanding access to health care for the 762,000 uninsured Maryland residents, reducing crowding of the roads and fighting to preserve the environment. Saqib is a proponent of the “Bottle Bill” legislation, which allows residents to sell empty bottles to the recycling company (usually for 5 or 10 cents a bottle). Saqib said this measure would encourage more recycling and provide a small source of income to residents.

As the only candidate with a young family, Saqib also has a vested interest in the state’s public school system and is determined to improve the quality of education by advocating for increased funding. He received an official endorsement from The Montgomery County Education Association in June.

                On August 12, a local resident named Timothy Truett confronted Saqib outside his home wearing a T-shirt reading “This mind is an Allah-free zone” and holding a sign denouncing Islam. According to Saqib, the man tried to provoke him verbally but the candidate refused to speak to him.

                While Saqib was shocked by the man’s intolerance, he insists it has not affected his campaign strategy. “Our campaign is so focused on harmony and it’s not even an issue,” he said.

                Saqib was born in Chicago in 1975 and moved to Montgomery County in 1991 to attend college. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer science from the University of Maryland and is currently employed by The Mitre Corporation in McLean, VA. He lives with his wife, Susan, and 3-month-old daughter, Sofia.

                As the Sept. 12 primary elections approach, it remains to be seen whether he can garner enough support in the polls to defeat one of the incumbents, though Saqib has no doubt that his energetic and persistent character gives him the tools to be an effective legislator for his constituents.