The Vince Gray for Mayor campaign has asked the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics to keep polls open later Tuesday night after two polls in the D.C. Council chairman’s home Ward 7 opened a half-hour late (at 7:30 a.m.) and problems with voting machines were reported across the city.
The Fenty campaign says only that they’re focused on getting the vote out.
There have been problems with electronic voting machines at several precincts. Voters in those precincts were asked to use paper ballots that the elections board says will be scanned into the electronic machines once they’re up and running again.
Gray urged voters to remain patient with the newly implemented system.
Meanwhile, voter turnout appears to be lighter than expected at some precincts.
At-large Councilman Phil Menderson visited Shepherd Elementary School around 11:30 Tuesday morning. He said it was the 10th precinct that he hds visited — all west of the Anacostia River — and turnout appeared light at all of them. Campaign workers at the typically high turnout Ward 4 elementary school said the turnout so far had been unusually small.
Polls are scheduled to close at 8 p.m.
