Trouble With Voting-Machine Cartridges Delays D.C. Primary Results
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Tuesday, February 12, 2008; 11:34 PM
Sen. Barack Obama won the D.C. Democratic primary election handily with about 75 percent of the vote, but numbers were not available from the D.C. Board of Elections until late in the evening because of trouble involving the delivery of voting-machine cartridges from polling places.
The inclement weather was a factor, election officials said.
Polls closed in the District at 8 p.m. Shortly before 10 p.m., officials released about half the returns from the city's 142 precincts, which showed Obama (Ill.) with a commanding lead over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
In Virginia, elections officials began released returns about 30 minutes after the polls closed at 7 p.m. Maryland extended voting hours by minutes, to 9:30 p.m., because of inclement weather. Obama won by wide margins in both states.
In the District's Republican primary, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) easily won over former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Some city officials were not pleased with the election board's performance.
"It's very disappointing that the results are not ready until after Maryland and Virginia," said Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2). "Obama was just on TV thanking Maryland and Virginia. Then he says, 'The results from the District are not in.' How hard can it be? It's 142 precincts. You count them. That's it."
Fenty, in an interview earlier tonight, said of the election board's performance: "There is always room for improvement. . . . We should have made them happen sooner. Absolutely."
As Fenty spoke, the crowd behind him, watching results on television, counted down the final 10 seconds until the Maryland polls closed at 9:30. Instantly, the television station called the Maryland race in favor of Obama. The crowd cheered.
Although the mayor appoints the chair of the elections board, the board had independent authority, Fenty aides said.
Projected D.C. voting results were unavailable early last night because the National Election Pool, a news media consortium that sponsors exit polling, did not conduct such surveys in the District. A spokesman for the election pool said D.C. was not included because of the relatively small number of delegates at stake in its primaries -- 15 Democratic and 16 Republican.
