LISTEN TO BILL O’FIELD HERE:
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Bill O'Field testifies
The Board of Elections and Ethics (BOEE) for the District of Columbia may be the most important board you’ve never heard of. This week, BOEE may have prevented the upcoming September 14th primary election from becoming a disaster. Wednesday morning, before an overflow crowd at One Judiciary Square at 441 4th St, NW, BOEE voted 2-0 to deny a petition to allow non-Democratic voters to vote in the September 14th Democratic primary. The Washington Post noted (“District maintains ‘closed primary’: Blow to Fenty campaign’“):
Registered voters not affiliated with a political party will not be allowed to cast ballots in the city’s primary elections next month, District elections officials ruled Wednesday.
The decision maintains regular practices but deals a major blow to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s efforts to capture votes in his reelection campaign.
The District has had a “closed primary” system since local elections began in 1974, in which only voters who declare a party affiliation may vote in that party’s primaries. Starting 30 days before an election, registered voters may not change their affiliation.
At Wednesday’s emergency BOEE hearing, those who testified were overwhelming opposed to Fenty’s petition. Many questioned the timing of the petition, coming less than three weeks before the September 14th Democracy primary where Fenty is facing D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray, who leads in the polls.
Among those testifying Wednesday was Bill O’Field, a Certified Elections/Registration Administrator and a United States electoral specialist who spent 13 years at BOEE before taking an early buyout in June 2008. O’Field is an elections watchdog and blogger (“Election Education Incorporated“). His post on Wednesday’s BOEE hearing is entitled “Keep Politics Out Of The Electoral Process.”
As I was standing just outside the packed BOEE hearing room, straining to hear those testifying, Jim McGrath of the D.C. Tenants Advocacy Coalition handed me a statement. It read:
What is going on here? Less than three weeks before the Democratic Primary, the D.C. Board of Elections is being asked by Mayor Fenty campaign officials to make drastic new rule changes, governing the election of officials from the mayor on down. Republican and Independent voters would be shoe-horned into the Democratic Primary, never mind that the deadline for switching parties was Monday, August 16th. Fenty campaign operatives are asking for an 11th hour “emergency switcheroo” in the rules. Apropos of that old saying: “Timing is everything”; this timing smells pretty bad. It strongly suggests that the only real “emergency” here is an “emergency” sensation in his camp that Fenty is about to lose an election, and that any gimmick circumventing long-held electoral rules to his benefit is fair game. Elections are not “games,” however, and proposals by Fenty people are anything but “fair.” Let the Republicans vote in their own primary and let the Democrats have theirs. There is no hardship to anybody under the present rules… It is a thoroughly corrupt gambit and should be dismissed by the Elections Board with prejudice.
Bill O’Field responded to McGrath’s statement: “I totally agree with what he said. It is a, to use his words, “switcheroo.” That is the feeling. And I believe that’s the feeling that was in the room today… the majority – the vast majority – were against it for now. It can come up later, but it should be a hearing before the Council, and it should be a stand alone piece of legislation.”
Apart from the Fenty campaign’s suggestion for open primaries – which was denied – there are major changes that are being implemented for the first time in this upcoming September 14th primary, such as same-day registration, early voting, and new voting machines and voting equipment from ES&S (which has a very spotty record). BOEE’s Executive Director Rokey Suleman implemented these major changes, yet even he expects “hiccups” with the upcoming election.
O’Field said, “I have great concern about what’s coming up on September 14th. When I testified before Councilmember Cheh’s Committee [on Government Operations and the Environment], I brought this to her attention: that this was too much at one time for any jurisdiction to handle. I asked that we only look at early voting centers because that would allow more voters to vote, gives them two weeks before the election in different locations around the city… But to make all these changes at once I feel could be detrimental to what happens on election day. And I’ll tell you with this election coming up, the mayoral election looks to be very close and one thing we don’t want in the District of Columbia is to look like a Florida situation from the year 2000. I’m very concerned about election day.”
LISTEN TO BILL O’FIELD HERE