The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics recently sent out approximately 126 erroneous absentee ballots for the Nov. 4 election to voters from D.C.'s Single Member District.
The 126 ballots out of 2,000 resident voters represent about 6.3 percent of votes in the Single Member District, SMD 2F03.
In an attempt to alleviate the mistake, a special D.C. City Council committee checked the 250 types of ballots that will be used in Tuesday's general election. The chairperson of this committee said the board should have checked all ballots before they were mailed, according to The Washington Post.
A Republican who lives in Ward Two first detected the blunder when he found Ward Six school board candidates, rather than the candidates for the Ward Two seat on his ballot.
The DCBOEE said in an Oct. 23 press release that the problem was an isolated incident.
"The board stresses that we believe this to be an isolated incident that has been corrected," the board said in the release. "We have taken steps to ... ensure that this voter will receive a replacement ballot." The DCBOEE had previously made mistakes during the Sept. 9 primary election when thousands of nameless votes were included in the results. SMD 2F03 is an area bordered by 12th and 15th Streets and by Massachusetts Avenue and Independence Avenue, according to the Post.
DCBOEE Chairman Errol R. Arthur said citizens should contact the board if they believe they have received the wrong ballot. "Any voter who believes that he or she has received an incorrect ballot should contact the Board immediately and we will remedy the situation," he said. Some of the voters may have been be out of town and were not be aware of the mistake, according to the Post.
The erroneous ballots could have had a major effect, especially at a local level, where the 6.3 percent could swing the results of some local races, said Aaron Goldstein, a freshman in School of Public Affairs. "If this 6.3 percent of voters are being marginalized, we need to infuse more integrity into our system," he said. "There is an apparent lack of oversight. It is just a must for everyone's votes to be counted." Seth Reuter, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, said he was happy with the Post's report of the problems.
"Whenever I see a report like [the Post article], I am glad it is reported, and I'm glad it will be fixed in the future," he said. "My reaction is one of contemplative concern because I don't want to overreact because mistakes happen."
Goldstein and Reuter are part of SPA's Center for Democracy and Election Management. Through CDEM, 150 students from the D.C. area, the majority of which are AU students, will be working at the polls on Election Day, according to CDEM Project Manager Alison L. Prevost.
"There will be one student at every poll serving a special position designed especially for college students for which you don't have to be registered to vote in D.C.," she said.
CDEM focuses on research, training and public awareness related to elections, according to Prevost.
"There is a lot of ongoing research on election problems in the U.S., and we are issuing reports on some of those," she said. The District, along with other states, may not be prepared for this upcoming election, said Prevost.
"There are some unique problems with D.C. elections in terms of organization, but I'm not sure that any state in the U.S. is fully ready for this major election," she said.
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