The polls will close on the Democratic primary at 8 p.m. Tuesday, but District residents should prepare themselves for uncertainty in the mayoral race. Unless it’s a blowout, it could be 10 days before the final count is in.
This year’s same-day registration, being allowed for the first time in D.C., threatens to snarl the final count. Those ballots, along with absentee votes, are counted separately from the electronic ballots cast at polling sites. The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics said as of Monday morning that it had received 2,774 same-day registration and change-of-address ballots in the two weeks of early voting. It has also sent out 5,000 absentee ballots. With more voters likely to register and change their addresses on Tuesday, it’s likely the number of ballots requiring a hand count will soar above 10,000. That’s about 10 percent of the average 100,000 votes cast in the past two mayoral primaries, although the campaigns believe the number of voters will be much higher on Tuesday.
“If the difference between the candidates is less than 5,000 votes, it’ll be too close to call [Tuesday night],” said local political consultant Chuck Thies.
The elections board won’t finish counting the paper ballots until Sept. 25. If the difference between the candidates is within 1 percent, the elections board will automatically go into a recount. The candidates have seven days to request a recount of their own. With accusations of vote buying being flung by Mayor Adrian Fenty and his challenger, D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray, it’s likely a close election will be contested, Thies said.
“Hopefully we’ll have an outcome [on Tuesday],” Gray said Monday. “We are prepared only for tomorrow.”
The Fenty campaign, although focused on Election Day, said it’s also getting ready for a post-Election Day battle.
“We are 100 percent focused on getting as many folks out to the polls as possible — the higher the turnout the better,” Fenty campaign spokesman Sean Madigan wrote in an e-mail. “If the race is tight, we’ve got the best election attorneys in the country to help ensure a fair process and an accurate count.”
Both mayoral candidates worked the campaign trail hard on Monday.
Gray started his day with an appearance on TBDTV. The news channel had invited both candidates to make “closing arguments” Monday morning, but only Gray took TBDTV up on its offer.
Fenty spent that time in front of his campaign headquarters on the corner of Missouri and Georgia avenues waving campaign signs at the passing traffic. The mayor then scooted down to the board of elections office in Judiciary Square to shake hands. He left, however, to shake hands in Dupont Circle before a D.C. Democratic Party news conference where candidates from across the city urged residents to vote.
Both Fenty and Gray spent the afternoon canvassing, and the mayor attended a campaign go-go concert in Southeast on Monday evening.
