D.C. Superior Court Judge Joan Zeldon rejected a final-hour appeal by the Vince Gray for Mayor campaign to keep the polls open later than planned.
Zeldon said the evidence was not conclusive that any voting problems early Tuesday had hurt residents’ ability to vote. The polls closed at 8 p.m. as planned.
The ruling came after the District’s Democratic primary got off to a rough start, with some precincts not opening on time and others citing problems with their electronic voting machines.
The problems led D.C. Council Chairman Gray to request that voting be extended two hours.
Election board head Rokey Suleman said between 15 and 20 precincts reported problems Tuesday morning. Most had to troubleshoot issues with the city’s new touch-screen voting machines.
Gray said he was one of what appears to be a few hundred voters who had to cast paper ballots because the touch-screen machine was broken when he arrived at his Ward 7 precinct to vote Tuesday morning. The council chairman, like others, had to drop his ballot into a lockbox beneath the touch-screen machine. He said two other Ward 7 precincts opened a half-hour late and some voters left.
Gray told The Washington Examiner that he was “very disappointed” with the voting problems. “People hopefully weren’t discouraged,” he said.
Suleman said all votes cast would be counted.
“This is typical of what happens when jurisdictions implement new equipment,” Suleman said. If people left because their precinct opened late, Suleman said they “can come back.”
