Problems Caused by Record DC Turnout!
Horace Mann School had problems!DC Elections Officials conceeded by phone this afternoon that some people, (they have no numbers), may have left the Polls on Tuesday without castng ballots.
At Draper Elementary in Southeast and Mann elementary in Northwest they ran out of paper ballots. Bill O'field spokesman for the Board of Electons and Ethics says there were enough ballots downtown, they printed 130,000 ballots; but the Precinct Captains at the schools didn't call for extras in time.
People were told they could vote on the Touch Screen machines, rather than the familiar paper machines; but the line was long (they have one of each machine at each polling place), so some people apparently left out of frustration without voting.
A record 120,372 people turned out to vote in DC on Tuesday. That's 38.53% compared to only 12.97% four years ago.
It's a closed Primary in DC, meaning Independent voters could not participate; but an undetermined high number of Independents did show up at the polls, according to election officials and had to be given special ballots which further depleted the ballot supply.
At Draper Elementary in Southeast and Mann elementary in Northwest they ran out of paper ballots. Bill O'field spokesman for the Board of Electons and Ethics says there were enough ballots downtown, they printed 130,000 ballots; but the Precinct Captains at the schools didn't call for extras in time.
People were told they could vote on the Touch Screen machines, rather than the familiar paper machines; but the line was long (they have one of each machine at each polling place), so some people apparently left out of frustration without voting.
A record 120,372 people turned out to vote in DC on Tuesday. That's 38.53% compared to only 12.97% four years ago.
It's a closed Primary in DC, meaning Independent voters could not participate; but an undetermined high number of Independents did show up at the polls, according to election officials and had to be given special ballots which further depleted the ballot supply.
O'Field told me 8,000 special ballots were handed out--that compares to only 911 special ballots that were counted four years ago!
One Democratic Party source last night said the Barack Obama campaign was encouraging Independents to go to the polls, thinking they could and would vote for the Illinois Senator who won the City's primary with 75% of the vote compared to Hillary Clinton's 24%.
An Obama supporter said the DC Election Officials should have been better prepared.
John McCain easily won the Republican primary in the overwhelmingly Democratic District.
One Democratic Party source last night said the Barack Obama campaign was encouraging Independents to go to the polls, thinking they could and would vote for the Illinois Senator who won the City's primary with 75% of the vote compared to Hillary Clinton's 24%.
An Obama supporter said the DC Election Officials should have been better prepared.
John McCain easily won the Republican primary in the overwhelmingly Democratic District.
One more glitch, by midday Wednesday- three precincts had still not reported their numbers. It turns out that cartridges from voting machines in those schools had not been picked up by election workers and the schools were closed and locked Tuesday evening before the mistakes were discovered.
139 or 142 precincts were included in the totals. Election Officials hoped to have total numbers later on Tuesday.
posted by Bruce Johnson @ 12:59 PM
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