Last night, I was nominated to go to DC board of the election to await for the result of the primary. I thought it would a be a cool experience so I accepted. Another volunteer and I headed down there for what we thought was going 30 minutes then off to the victory party. Little did we that the DC Board Of Election & Ethics (BOEE) complete incompetence would keep us there till the wee hours of the morning. To make the long story short; when first set of result came in, everything looked fine. Evans was up 66% to 33% and .54% write-in with 14% of the precincts reporting. When the second set the report came in, something didn't add up. Evans was up 48% to 34% and 17% write-in with 94% of precincts reporting. The second set of numbers estimated that 9000 people in our Ward, more than doubling the numbers from 2004 ( a mayoral election). Having walked around throughout the day, I knew there was a low voter turns out. Additionally, we were not aware of any write-in campaigns going on in our race, so 17% write-in made absolutely no sense. My suspicions were confirmed by Evans' Campaign manager. We went upstairs along with Mara's campaign manager and Schwartz's campaign manager (They were having the same problem). Meanwhile, The AP called the raced, then the post based on the AP the numbers. And from there things went downhill from there. Lawyers came, WaPo came, CityPaper came, Washington Times was called, I think the AP had take back calling the race and people at the BOEE just looked really really really really really bad. The lawyers present requested precinct by precinct report. The BOEE put out three sets of numbers after that but the damage had been done. Everyone was dissecting the numbers and the whole thing was just a mess.
Needless to say, this was an eye opening experience for me. I'm deeply troubled by the city's inability to handle such a small election. By all accounts, the primary in February had a much larger turn and the city failed to properly handle that election as well. As of this moment, I'm shocked, angered, and disappointed. If I had any power, no one at the board of election would have a job this morning (except maybe nice security guards from last night). I really hope Mayor Fenty and the rest of the council take a good look at this. It's ridiculous that the capital of the free world can not manage to run an election smoothly.
As of the writing of this post, we have not yet conceded. we are waiting for the precinct by precinct report and results from the absentee ballots (if they can count them correctly.) I'm headed to NYC for the ServiceNation Summit with Senators Obama and McCain, more on what I learn in this campaign when I get back from NYC.
DC PRIMARY RESULTS NIGHT COVERAGE
CityPaper - Live from the Clusterfuck
BOEE "Official" results
Washington Post
DC Wire
DCist
p.s. I did not cut my hair for the next POTUS... whoever he is.
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