jonetta rose barras: DC’s primary election mess

Officials at the DC Board of Elections have managed to publish preliminary voting results from the primary election held earlier this week. That achievement may not be worth celebrating, however. The primary election was an absolute mess.

Many voters who had requested mail-in ballots never received them. Through a special arrangement with the U.S. Postal Service, some outstanding ballots — though not all — were delivered on Sunday. Still others were hand-delivered by the board staff. And reportedly at the urging of at-large DC Council member Elissa Silverman, the Elections Board used a system typically set aside for voters with physical disabilities to submit their ballots by email, raising several security questions.

Rachel Coll, a spokesperson for the BOE, acknowledged that the email system was deployed because of Silverman’s intervention. “It wasn’t necessarily something we developed and intended to use,” added Coll, noting there were “approximately 1,000” such requests and ballots distributed using that system.

Interestingly, Silverman endorsed three individuals in the council races: Ward 8’s Trayon White, Ward 2 candidate Jordan Grossman and Ward 4 candidate Janeese Lewis George. Should the BOE have permitted Silverman to intervene given that she had endorsed those candidates and was actively engaged with campaigning, including joining George in a get-out-the-vote car caravan? Silverman also used an email list she developed through her own campaign to solicit support for both George and Grossman.

“There was no bias,” Silverman told me Wednesday during a phone interview. 

The council member said she had received numerous calls and emails from residents who had not received their ballots. She took her concerns to the Elections Board and was told that people should just go vote in person. “Some of those people were unable to vote in person. What was I supposed to do? I’m an elected official!”

Coll said the board is reviewing each ballot filed by email to ensure that the voter had, in fact, requested a mail-in ballot. She said officials would count only those where there had been such a request.

Don’t be shocked if a lawsuit follows the absentee voting fiasco and officials’ failure to ensure enfranchisement of District residents. Reviewing steps taken by the BOE and what appeared to be an uneven application of the law and rules, some campaigns had begun discussing that possibility even before the election results were made public.

Do they have a case? Consider that the BOE staff personally delivered at least 50 ballots to select voters, according to Alice Miller, the board’s executive director. She said election officials persuaded the Postal Service to deliver on Sunday another 300 ballots. How were those voters selected for special treatment? Equally important, when the board made its ill-advised decision on the email voting option, did it at least notify every candidate of that process? 

“I am at a loss to understand how a number of decisions were made,” said Dorothy Brizill, founder of DC Watch, a government watchdog group. Considered an expert on local elections matters, she has monitored the actions of the BOE for more than 20 years, including how it has managed absentee balloting and election-day voting.

“We will tell in the coming weeks whether or not the board is equipped or competent to conduct the November general election,” Brizill added.

Silverman has already made up her mind. She said the board’s chairman, Michael Bennett, “should resign, and so should Alice.”

“The absentee thing has been a total debacle from start to finish,” said Silverman, who sent a letter to Bennett and Miller the day after the election, asking that “that the Board immediately contract with an outside firm to do a full audit of the primary to determine why absentee ballots were not processed and identify other operational failures that might have occurred.”

“The District cannot have a repeat performance of what happened in the November general election. The stakes are too high,” Silverman wrote in her letter.

Mayor Muriel Bowser called the election-day problems, particularly the long lines at poll centers, “nothing short of failed execution.” She declined to say at this point that BOE officials should be fired but noted that “I could not tolerate continued failed leadership or execution,” as two more elections are scheduled this year. 

As chair of the committee with oversight of the BOE, Ward 6 DC Council member Charles Allen has scheduled a public roundtable for June 19 to explore what happened in the primary. He and his Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety may also examine the board’s readiness for the general election.

Bennett told The Washington Post that the agency’s technology was not able to handle the surge of absentee ballot requests. “The system gets clogged and the technology doesn’t tend to have to manage that large of a volume,” he said.

Wait, wait. When Bennett was nominated for his post in 2016, he touted his technology background as an asset and one of the reasons he was the perfect person for the job. Shouldn’t he have been able to anticipate the agency and its tech system were outmatched for the task it had been given? Did he consider that in a presidential primary there might be greater voter interest?

The council included mail-in balloting as an aspect of the COVID-19 recovery bill passed in March to assist residents, small businesses and workers. Legislators hoped to prevent community spread while also making it easier for voters to honor Bowser’s public health orders and protect themselves from exposure to the novel coronavirus. As additional encouragement for the use of mail-in ballots, the board severely reduced the number of election-day voting centers from 144 to 20 citywide. 

When that legislation passed, I warned that things would not end well. In my view, the BOE did not have enough time to implement an efficient and successful vote-by-mail system — even a partial one. What’s more, it’s record of performance was extremely poor. My prediction was accurate.

After not receiving their ballots, DC voters converged on the polling centers. With the mandate of social distancing, only up to 10 individuals at a time were permitted inside. The result was long lines. While the polls may have closed at 8 p.m., there were people still voting at 1 a.m. on Wednesday.

As of Thursday, June 4, the BOE reported that 94,803 votes had been cast either at early voting centers, on election day or by absentee ballot. However, the report does not provide a clear and transparent picture of the numbers. For example, the tally from early voting has been folded into so-called “election day” votes of 33,194; in fact, 12,719 of that total appears to be from early voting.

Equally confusing, the board’s website indicated as of this afternoon’s update that there are 61,609 absentee and special ballots. But Coll said, the special ballots have not been counted. “There are about 4,000 special ballots,” she told me. According to the BOE, a special ballot often is used when an individual’s voting eligibility cannot be determined at the polling place; only after the board has confirmed eligibility will that ballot be counted. Also, in this election, there were voters who submitted absentee ballots for  which the board was unable to confirm receipt. Consequently, some people went to the polls and voted in-person; those individuals were given special ballots.

There are undoubtedly many additional absentee ballots sent through the Postal Service. Those must be postmarked June 2 and by law must be received no later than June 12.

The board’s press release says Thursday’s update reflects “the most current count,” and that “new numbers will be released” as the count continues.

That means even the preliminary numbers are preliminary.

This much is not likely to change: Joe Biden won the Democratic presidential preference primary. President Donald Trump won the Republican nomination. DC Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton won her party’s nomination for the U.S. Congress. Natale Lino Stracuzzi won the Statehood Green Party nomination for the position, and Ford Fisher was the Libertarian party’s choice; there was no one listed on the Republican ballot. Democrats have the largest number of registered voters in DC, so don’t expect the minority parties to gain any footing between now and the November general election.

At-large DC Council member Robert White, who ran unopposed in the Democratic Primary, picked up 77,435 votes (97.21%). Ward 7 Council member Vincent Gray and Ward 8 incumbent Trayon White beat back a slew of opponents to win their Democratic nominations by large enough margins that the votes yet to be counted won’t affect the outcome.

Former Ward 2 Council member Jack Evans failed in his quest to regain his seat, finishing seventh among eight candidates in the Democratic primary. Brooke Pinto has the lead with 2,545 votes or 27.97%; Patrick Kennedy is on her heels with 2,358 votes or 25.91%. (There’s also the separate special election on June 16 to fill the current Ward 2 vacancy caused by Evans’ resignation.)

Incumbent Brandon Todd received 43.27% (7,218) compared with Democratic socialist Janeese Lewis George, who leads with 54.54% (9,098). She declared victory after the initial count was released early Wednesday morning, asserting that Todd probably couldn’t close the gap. Her prediction appears accurate given Thursday’s update. “This is a people-powered movement and I will always put people first,” she said in a prepared statement. “Our campaign has a broad coalition, reflective of Ward 4. Ward 4 neighbors and grassroots organizations came together and together, united, we won.”

Speaking about the upset in Ward 4 involving her former staffer and political ally, Bowser said, “When the voters speak, we have to listen and be ready to work with the people they send down.” She added that Todd “should be very proud of his service.”

With early voting in the special election set to begin June 12 and mail-in ballots already in the hands of some voters, Ward 2 residents will be casting ballots without knowing the outcome of the June 2 primary election — making the board’s always-questionable decision to hold two elections in rapid succession even more ridiculous. God only knows when a tally of both contests will be finalized, particularly if there are legal challenges.

Miller defended the agency’s work in the midst of a pandemic. “The staff has worked under unprecedented and extremely challenging circumstances nonstop for the past six to eight weeks,” she told me in a post-election interview, adding that “some placed their health at risk” and “many have experienced the death of family members, including that of a 3-year-old child.” 

The impact of COVID-19 has been devastating and tragic. Everyone grieves the losses experienced by residents in DC and elsewhere. But we can’t blame everything on the virus, any more than the looting and vandalism associated with civil disobedience that has swept parts of the country this week, including DC, can be blamed on George Floyd, the unarmed African American who died after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin buried his knee in Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.

During times of political, health and socioeconomic crises like those facing our country, an election process that is fair and well-managed takes on even greater importance. When officials fail, as those at the BOE did, democracy takes the hit.

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jonetta rose barras is an author and freelance journalist, covering national and local issues including politics, childhood trauma, public education, economic development and urban public policies. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.