Final Counts Put Wynn, Kramer Over Challengers

By William Wan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 24, 2006

After almost two weeks of investigations, finger pointing and angst, vote counting in the much maligned Montgomery County primary came to an end yesterday with a quiet rustle of paper as the last of the provisional ballots was tallied and approved.

The result appeared to settle the final two races that had been left hanging: Rep. Albert R. Wynn's victory over challenger Donna Edwards in the 4th Congressional District and Benjamin F. Kramer's victory over Paul Griffin in the District 19 House of Delegates race. The county and state must certify the results this week before they are official.

"I have the impression that the fat lady has begun to warm her vocal cords if not actually singing," Kramer said yesterday afternoon as the final votes rolled in. "We're just pleased things worked out after all the work and waiting."

In the congressional race, Edwards received 15,851 votes in Montgomery -- 6,722 more than Wynn -- but was unable to overcome Wynn's lead in Prince George's County, losing the Democratic nomination by a total of 2,725 votes. Wynn would not comment, and Edwards could not be reached last night after the vote counting was completed.

Kramer received 5,119 votes -- a narrow margin of 307 votes -- to defeat Griffin and will advance to the general election to vie with two other Democrats and three Republicans for the district's three house seats. Griffin said last night he planned to call Kramer to concede.

The Montgomery Board of Elections isn't scheduled to certify local results until tomorrow, but several elections officials expressed relief while sorting through the final papers yesterday in their Rockville office. The Maryland State Board of Elections is scheduled to certify state and congressional results Tuesday.

The final count capped 11 whirlwind days that began with panic and confusion the morning of the Sept. 12 primary, when election workers realized they had forgotten to supply Montgomery's 238 precincts with plastic electronic cards needed for voting.

Voters cast 11,471 provisional ballots in large part because of the human error and additional technical glitches. Since Monday, county elections officials have been wading through them, inspecting each provisional ballot by hand and checking them against several records to make sure voters were eligible to vote and that that they hadn't already voted absentee.

Some ballots had to be examined by as many as five election workers and researched extensively. In some cases, judges made notations on provisional ballot envelopes that explain the reason why a provisional ballot was cast.

For example, one judge's notation said: "Database showed voter voted 9/23."

"I have no idea what that means," said Margaret Jurgensen, the county elections director. "We have to call the judge and find out what they mean by that."

Another said: "Machine went blank."

"But it doesn't say which machine," Jurgensen said. "I suspect it was the" electronic poll book, a new technology used to check in voters.

In fewer than a dozen cases, precincts ran out of provisional ballots and had voters write on scraps of paper.

"We'd rather be slow, ponderous and accurate than to rush through this and get anything wrong," said elections board member Sam Statland, sitting at a table piled high with paper ballots. "Every vote is supposed to matter."

Meanwhile, candidates checked in almost every day for new tallies.

"I really think this was fate's way of toying with me, stringing me along to keep me humble lest I start getting cocky," Kramer said. "And it's worked -- my ego has definitely been in check."

Griffin took a different approach, leaving it all behind and taking his family on a scheduled trip to Bethany Beach, Del.

"It's not like I could look over their shoulders and check every ballot," he said. And besides, Kramer's lead had only widened as more votes were counted.

"So I told Kramer to call me if he heard anything and took off for the beach," Griffin said. "I mean, it's not like Bush versus Gore. There's no hostility, and we're not staying up every night chewing our nails."

"I mean, there's always a glimmer of hope, but by Tuesday when they did the absentee ballots, I had already logically accepted I had lost," he said.

Wynn said in an interview Friday night that he had been busy on Capitol Hill working on bills. "I haven't talked to Edwards. I'm just going on my regular schedule, trying to get work done," he said.

Of the elections errors that had led to voting problems and delays in results, he said: "I think the public's probably lost some confidence in our handling of elections. We have to figure out how to get it right by November."

Edwards, who had threatened to file a lawsuit over voting irregularities in Prince George's, said Friday night she was deciding whether to take any legal steps .

Staff writer Christian Davenport contributed to this report.