Voting Irregularities Discovered in Ward 5 Primary Election
Results in Washington, D.C.
The DC Statehood Green Party
http://www.dcstatehoodgreen.org
Monday, October 23, 2006
Contact:
Scott McLarty, DC Statehood Green Party Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624,
mclarty@greens.org
Voting irregularities discovered in Ward 5 primary election results in Washington, D.C.
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DC Statehood Green candidate, in routine review
of votes after primary, uncovers discrepancy: only 89 votes recorded
for 140 Statehood Green voters, with 51 votes apparently 'lost'
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Reliability of certified results in Statehood Green primary for Ward 5 seat on City Council in
question
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40% of Republican votes apparently lost from the Ward 5 vote count; Statehood Greens urge
investigation by D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- An investigation of voter rolls and votes in the September 12 primary
election in Washington, D.C.'s Ward 5 has revealed unexplained irregularities in the race
for the DC Statehood Green Party's nomination for the Ward 5 seat on City Council.
Philip Blair examined the primary results after he apparently lost the primary race to Carolyn
Steptoe in a close 40-33 vote.
"In an effort to see if I had grounds for a challenge, I began the process of checking the
pollbooks to see who actually signed in as a Statehood Green voter on election day," wrote Mr.
Blair in an October 13, 2006 letter to the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics
(BOEE).
Links to Philip Blair's letters to the BOEE are appended below. He can be reached at
202-526-8821 or <blair-rowan@starpower.net>.
Mr. Blair discovered a significant discrepancy between the number of Statehood Green voters who
signed in at the polls or submitted absentee ballots and the number of Statehood Green votes
that were reported in the primary election results in many Ward 5 precincts.
"89 votes were recorded for 140 voters. 51 votes, many more than either candidate received, simply
disappeared from the final count announced in the certified results," said Mr. Blair in his letter.
In every precinct but three, the number of Statehood Green voters who signed in or submitted
absentee ballots exceeded the number of Statehood Green votes. In six precincts, there were more
than twice as many signed-in voters as votes recorded.
"The problem is, in some precincts, extreme: in one case (Precinct 139) seven times more voters
than votes and in another (Precinct 66) six times more."
Mr. Blair also noted that he found "significant discrepancies between the data from the pollbooks
and data from the CD [version of the voter-rolls]. At least eight (and possibly nine
or ten) Ward 5 Statehood Green voters are listed as having voted on the CD, but not in the
pollbooks. And contrariwise, at least six and possibly seven voters are listed in the pollbooks
but not in the CD."
In his letter, Philip Blair stressed the significance of the apparent irregularities in
the Ward 5 primary:
"Since candidates and other interested parties
must rely upon the information published by the BOEE in deciding whether to
challenge results, and since there is such a narrow window of opportunity to successfully challenge results and
make a difference in the declared winners of the elections, discrepancies of this order of
magnitude are unacceptable.... In short, it is impossible to tell which candidate for Council in
the Ward 5 DC Statehood Green Party primary had the larger number of votes, since so many of the
votes were not counted and the reliability of the reported data is marred by inconsistencies.
This undercount of votes could have affected not only my own contest, but also other primary contests
in the Ward."
Mr. Blair concluded the letter with a call for "an immediate investigation of this situation."
Commenting on his discovery and his letter to the
BOEE, Philip Blair said, "The Statehood Green Party is the canary in the
coal-mine on voting issues here. Our numbers are small enough to permit the kind of line-by-line search of
pollbooks that reveals situations like the ones documented in my complaints. We cannot let this
issue go away unresolved; it is way more important that who won or lost our Ward 5
primary."
Mr. Blair also discovered major discrepancies in the Republican vote count: "Though the Republican
primary results have not been scrutinized as closely as those for the Statehood-Green Party,
our preliminary research shows the discrepancies there are just as serious."
In an October 19 letter to the BOEE, he wrote, "The CD version of the list of registered voters
with voting histories indicates that 335 Republicans voted in their primary in Ward 5. The
Board of Elections turnout figure is 202. Fully 40% of the Republican votes were lost from the
count, if the CD data and the BOEE's turnout count are to be believed."
LINKS to Philip Blair's letters to the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics:
October 6, 2006: initial complaint: lost DC Statehood Green votes
original_complaint.pdf
October 13, 2006: revised complaint
boee_complaint_ward5.pdf
October 19, 2006: lost Republican votes
boee_complaint_with_additional_material.pdf
MORE INFORMATION
The DC Statehood Green Party
http://www.dcstatehoodgreen.org
