Did Y'All Hear the One...

about the mailing that went out to tens of thousands of people in DC telling them to go to the WRONG place to vote on Primary Day?

Yep, the District of Columbia Voter Guide put out by the D. C. Board of Elections and Ethics includes the instructions that voters have to go to their assigned precincts, but then their mailing label info gave most people - including ME - the wrong precinct number! I have always voted at the Marie Reed Learning Center, Precinct #24, which is just a few blocks away from my apartment. But this mailing said my precinct is #2, which is somewhere on the GW campus. I can't go for that (no can do).

I first learned of this big goof in an email from my Councilman, Jim Graham, that went out to all the neighborhood yahoogroups. In the email, with a subject line that starts "Election Snafu....", Graham tells us what happened, and shares that this is not the first time a mistake like this has occurred:

Last week, a vendor for the DC Board of Elections and Ethics mailed voter information guides to all registered Democrats in the District. This guide contained a list of polling places - with the boldface instruction that "You must vote at your assigned polling place for your vote to be counted." These voter guides went out with each voter's precinct number on the mailing label. But the precinct numbers were wrong for a great many voters, including mine. This is outrageous. I know I'm not supposed to vote in Foggy Bottom. But how many voters will take the Board's instructions for true? The Board put out a statement last Friday saying it couldn't reach the vendor, Toucan Printing and Promotional Products, Inc., to find out why this happened. This isn't the first time. In 2002, the Board sent 200 registered Ward One Democrats to polling places in Ward Two. In 2004, the voting guides arrived at many homes after the D.C. primary.

Of course, Graham then promises to raise hell when the Council reconvenes to make sure it doesn't happen again, etc., etc.

Today, I received a follow-up postcard from the Board of Elections explaining the mistake and giving the correct info. But I worry that a lot of people aren't going to notice that tiny little nondescript postcard and will be showing up at the wrong precincts and then turned away without being able to vote.

Stories like this, with DC bumbling and proving yet again that it has a terrible municipal system, just make me sad. I worry that even if we are ever able to earn ourselves voting rights, we just won't know what to do with them. Come on, folks, our nation's capital can do better than this!


If you are a DC resident and want to double-check where you should actually be voting for the primary on Tuesday, check out the Board of Elections web site to be sure.