Election Night Results Or the Lack of Results Would Be More to the Point

That’s what it is called election night. But somehow the DC Board of Elections couldn’t get it’s act together and report the results in any sort of timely manner. It’s hard to imagine how this could have happened when you had a total of 83, 040 votes or just 22.5% of registered voters voting in the election. It still took the Board of Elections over 4 hours to post any meaningful results.


The reason well they are just lame. It seems that five machines were not closed down correctly and that brought the whole process to a standstill. This from the Post:

At the heart of the delay, officials said, were five electronic voting machines from which results were not properly extracted. When vote-counters noticed the problem on the machine printouts delivered to election headquarters, they stopped releasing electronic results and fanned out across the city to check the machines and retrieve accurate counts. In the end, officials did not release enough returns to call the race for D.C. Council member Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) until moments before midnight.

And this great line from the board’s executive director, Clifford Tatum:

“It took a little longer than what we’re used to,” Tatum acknowledged. But “we are confident that the results are accurate, which is what we’re always concerned about — accuracy over speed.”

He went on to add this as well: poll workers had not been trained well enough. Let’s stop and think on that one. Isn’t properly training poll workers the job of oh I don’t know the board of elections. And, why would the fact that five machines were not properly closed down, mean that the counting process for all the other machines (there are 300 electronic machines in all) stopped. To top it off there seemed to be little concern to inform anyone about what was going on at all. At the end of the night they seemed to pat themselves on the back (see the above statement) that they did a good job.

Don’t see how you get that out of what happened. It’s not like machines malfunctioned. This was because the people closing down the machines were not trained correctly. This is something that could have easily been avoided by training people correctly. It also sounds like the machines are much more complicated then they need to be but that’s an entirely different issue.

The Post has a great editorial about the whole mess that goes beyond just the issue of the machines but with the primary in general as well as voter turn out.

In at least recognizing in a very small part that things could have been done better:

Tatum said the board will focus on better training of poll workers before the next election and will consider asking the council for more money to buy newer voting machines that are easier to shut down without errors. The current machines were purchased in 2010 and 2012.

How much newer can the voting machines be? The question that needs to be asked is why these were purchased in the first place. If the machines are that complicated to extract results from a machine that is easier to use should have been selected in the first place.

All one can hope for is that come the fall these problems will be fixed

DC Primary

The DC primary is on Tuesday. In many ways it's actually the general election. For instance when we vote for mayor on Tuesday we're really electing the next mayor. The notion that a Republican would ever be able to win the mayor's office is about as likely as I am of being elected Pope.

Speaking of mayor it appears that Vincent Gray will beat the incumbent Adrian Fenty. Most polls find Gray ahead by around 8 to 10 points. There are still a large number of people that are undecided around 10-13%. But they would have to break overwhelmingly in Fenty's favor for him to win. I'm not a huge fan of Fenty but Gray is well how does one put this I prefer my candidates to have a pulse. Gray to me is essentially lifeless. He seems to have no personality at all. He doesn't project leadership.

Fenty certainly does that and sometimes people find that abrasive. I like how the City Paper endorsed Fenty by saying Adrian Fenty: The Jerk D.C. Needs. Fenty is now admitting that maybe he should have been a little less of a jerk. This is probably too late.

Things are pretty good in the District. Fenty's administration has had its problems but again things are going pretty well. The economic downturn has hit DC but not as hard as in some other places. There seems to be some real progress in cleaning up the mess that is DC public schools. I have to assume if Gray wins we go back to square one on that.

There are the areas of the city where positive change is coming at a glacial pace. I speaking of course of the area across the Anacostia. There have been promises for years that improvements will be made there and no one not even Marion Barry seems to be able to deliver on that. I'm not sure Gray will be any different.

As for the general process of the election well I'm starting to think that it's a little flawed. The primary is a closed primary so only Democrats can vote in it. I was surprised to find out that there are over 70,000 registered independents in the city. They are essential shut out of the process. Yes they have the opportunity to switch parties but why should they. Why can't they declare their party affiliation when they are at their polling place? It is rather ironic for a city that so wants to have voting representation in Congress, that's motto on its license plate is taxation without representation would disenfranchise such a large group of people. Why not just have an open primary.

On a personal note, I will be glad when the primary is over. It means no more robo calls, no more campaign brochures being mailed or left on my door step and no more canvassers going door to door.

Ward 5 Politics

I got the above brochure in the mail a week or so ago. It's for a guy, Delano Hunter, who is running in Ward 5, the Ward I live, for city council. It's not directly from his campaign but rather the National Organization for Marriage. The thing that's rather ironic is that NOM is trying to pass itself off as some home grown, local organization. The fact is they've only been in DC since last spring (there was a wonderful puff piece about NOM in the Post Style section sometime in April of 2009).

The only reason they moved here was to fight against gay marriage. They don't care about any other issue.

I also like the very conspiratorial language of the "homosexual activists." Seems a rather desperate measure on their part. Sort of reminds me of the "death panels" from last summer's health care debate. It also plays into people fears about some outside group coming along and influencing a local election. The problem is of course as I stated the NOM is essentially outside group. It has a very short history in the District and for them to talk about "our right to home rule" is laughable.

In the paragraph above they state "they don't like his plan to improve our community, but only because he supports the Biblical definition of marriage." Notice they didn't use the word traditional form of marriage. The specifically used the word Biblical. This is to go after people who are religious in the Ward and also imply all those "activists" are some how not believers in God.

In their great wisdom the Post has decided to endorse Hunter saying in part:

Mr. Hunter is not a supporter of marriage equality, but he is not the homophobe his critics make him out to be, but rather someone who thinks there is a way to provide equality for gays while respecting the beliefs of religious groups. He said he would not seek to change the law.

It's interesting that in the brochure there's no talk about that at all. In fact one of the points raised is the "Right of DC residents to Vote on Homosexual Marriage." I'm curious as to how that is not seeking to change the law.

I have to say I'm greatly disappointed in the Post. Their logic on this one is very flawed.

And to NOM I'm awarding the hypocrisy with a capital H award for their brochure.

Ward 5 Straw Poll

I went to the Ward 5 Democratic straw poll last night. I thought about driving but thought it would be too crowded and parking would be difficult (and was so right on that). I thought I could walk but I was doing a podcast last night and walking back would take up too much time. So I decided I would ride my bike. I got home around 5 and made dinner. I pumped up my tires and set off.

This was the first time this year that I’ve been on my bike. Not very good when you consider how many times I rode it last year. I biked over to the church at 16th and Taylor where the poll was going to take place. What a mad house. It took me a little while to figure out where I could lock my bike up but I finally found one.

As to the madhouse well it started a block from the church. There were people on the sidwalks with signs for all the different candidates well actually some of them were in the street too. Then were yard signs linning both sides of the parkway. Candidates had set up booths. They were giving away free hot dogs and flavored ice. There was even one of those moon bounce things for the kids to play in.

I got in line. Surrounding the line were people passing out stickers, flyers and urging people to vote for their candidate. There were also candidates there as well. Now when you go to a polling place in an actual election there’s law that no electioneering can take place so many feet from the polling place. Well this was not an official election so people were up to the actual entrance to the church bombarding you with all of this stuff.

When I was just about at the entrance along came one of the workers for one of the candidates saying I’ve got my seniors here and they’re getting off the bus and get to go to the front of the line. Thankfully there were not all that many of them. I finally got in to the church.

Once in people were milling around. Finally there was someone who pointed the way to the basement where you would cast your vote. As I was walking down the stairs there was a man coming up the stairs. It turned out to be Marion Barry. We shook hands. (I commented on this in the most recent 2politcal podcast which should be posted shortly. I said I would never wash my hand but I might sniff it.)

Finally got down into the voting area. I was directed to the M-R table. I checked in and then finally got to vote.

And the winner is . . .

Adrian Fenty. And he did it handily. It's been a long time since I actually voted for someone. Not since Gore. And for a change it's nice to vote for someone who wins!

There was a new wrinkle in the campaign this time. Recorded messages left on my answering machine! Now this has happened in the past. But I've never had so many messages left before. Friday there were five. Saturday there were four and twice I answered the phone and they were on the other end. Sunday there was six. Monday eight. Eight messages. I couldn't believe it. There were even a couple on election day.

But I was a good citizen and voted. Got to the polling place a little before it opened. I was home at 7:10.

And I'll be ready to do it all again in November.