{"id":546,"date":"2026-06-18T10:39:39","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T10:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=546"},"modified":"2026-06-18T10:39:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T10:39:39","slug":"why-was-d-c-slow-to-report-results-on-election-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=546","title":{"rendered":"Why Was D.C. Slow to Report Results on Election Night?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The pledge was simple enough: Once the polls closed at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, the District of Columbia Board of Elections would quickly post the results online. Election night parties could proceed, reporters could file their stories and residents could go to bed having some sense of the consequential election they just voted in.<\/p>\n

Read more Americans Can\u2019t Afford Not to Sell Their Plasma<\/a><\/p>\n

But that didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is nearly 90 minutes after polls closed in the nation\u2019s capital, and there\u2019s still zero votes counted in the Washington, D.C., mayoral primary,\u201d noted<\/u><\/span> New York Times reporter Reid Epstein. \u201cAlabama\u2019s polls closed at the same time, and more than 165,000 votes have been counted in the state Senate\u2019s primaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Epstein \u2014 and just about everyone else waiting on results, NOTUS reporters included \u2014 would have to wait almost another 90 minutes before initial counts were posted, at 10:47 p.m. The wait dragged on to such an extent that one top mayoral candidate \u2014 Kenyan McDuffie \u2014 spoke to supporters before any results had been made public to tell them what was becoming apparent to everyone else: \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gary Thompson, the chair of the elections board, says the reason for the delays is simple: There were still D.C. residents waiting to vote when polls were set to close, so election workers did what they always do and waited for them to do so. And as long as they waited, no results would be released.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing is the voter,\u201d he told NOTUS. \u201cI would rather have some in the media be annoyed than stop the voters from thinking clearly about who they want to vote for.\u201d<\/p>\n

But why were there lines outside some polling places? There\u2019s a more complicated explanation, and it involves a new way of voting, old machines to vote on and a tug-of-war between apolitical election officials and the D.C. lawmakers who oversee and fund them.<\/p>\n

\u2018This Is a Fiasco\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, residents could vote at any of the 75 vote centers located across the city. Gone are the days of being tied to a specific polling place based on your residential address; now any voter can get a ballot on demand at any vote center for the specific races they\u2019ll be weighing in on. And that ballot can be on paper \u2014 which is printed on the spot \u2014 or on an electronic machine, which is preloaded with all the possible ballot combinations for any given election.<\/p>\n

By late afternoon on Tuesday, though, some vote centers were experiencing problems with their ballot printers, with some running out of ink. A NOTUS reporter was on hand at Powell Elementary<\/u><\/span> in Petworth when a printer stopped working, forcing voters to use the three available electronic voting machines.<\/p>\n

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The paper ballot printers are also down at Bancroft Elementary, forcing people to vote on electronic machines and creating longer lines. Bancroft is below at left, Powell at right. Lines are manageable, but it takes 10-12 minutes to vote the full ballot, and there are 3 machines. https:\/\/t.co\/2uCz313kkn pic.twitter.com\/apsOurbwh5<\/p>\n

\u2014 Martin Austermuhle (@maustermuhle) June 16, 2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThis is a fiasco,\u201d remarked a frustrated election worker, who asked not to be named, as the line quickly grew. The same problem was reported at Bancroft Elementary in Mount Pleasant, at Shiloh Baptist Church in Shaw and at Noyes Elementary in Brookland.<\/p>\n

In some cases the printers were quickly fitted with new ink cartridges; in others, though, long lines developed as voters waited to cast ballots on the electronic voting machines. And those machines were an additional source of the problem; one voter in Ward 5 said<\/u><\/span> they were \u201cslower than a 10-year-old iPad.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that was a problem D.C. lawmakers were aware of \u2014 and, election officials say, haven\u2019t done anything to remedy.<\/p>\n

During a D.C. Council budget hearing last month, Board of Elections Director Monica Evans explained the board needed a one-time allocation of $2.5 million, plus $90,000 in ongoing maintenance, to replace 450 aging \u201cExpressVote ADA ballot-marking devices.\u201d She noted that the machines are 10 years old \u201cand at the end of their useful life.\u201d<\/p>\n

She went on to explain that there have been increased problems with the touch screen and that it\u2019s taking longer to mark choices \u2014 issues the board saw crop up in the 2024 election and were also evident in Tuesday evening\u2019s long lines.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe current machines have issues including unresponsive touch screens that frustrate voters and undermine confidence in the election process,\u201d Evans testified. She said the vendor supplying the machines also told the board it was time to replace the equipment.<\/p>\n

The shift to ranked-choice voting, Evans added, only exacerbated the problem by naturally causing voters to spend more time at the machines. In some cases that NOTUS reporters observed, voters could spend up to 20 or more minutes navigating through the many pages of the longer ballot on the electronic voting machines.<\/p>\n

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Evans also warned of the broader implications: \u201cMalfunctioning equipment also directly erodes public trust, especially as the BOE implements ranked-choice voting, which requires highly responsive and accurate ballot-marking devices.\u201d<\/p>\n

While elections officials acknowledged during the May hearing that it was already too late to deploy new equipment in time for the June primary, the aim was to secure funding and get new machines in place ahead of the general election, helping to maintain \u201cthe credibility of the District\u2019s electoral process,\u201d Evans said.<\/p>\n

\u2018He\u2019s Out of His Mind\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n

In an interview with NOTUS, Thompson said that the elections board has long been stymied by the Council in its requests for funding to replace outdated electronic voting machines. He said that\u2019s especially the case with Council member Anita Bonds, who chairs the committee that oversees the elections board.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe doesn\u2019t understand our needs, she hasn\u2019t been responsive to them. She\u2019s been unhelpful for a while,\u201d he said. \u201cWe threw up our hands and said we have to keep calm and carry on, do what we have to do. We\u2019ll use these slightly outdated machines and we\u2019re going to figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

For her part, Bonds called the primary night delays \u201cupsetting,\u201d but told NOTUS that she was under the impression the current machines, which are set to be replaced for the general election, could withstand one last citywide vote.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut we were not expecting it to be nearly two hours,\u201d Bonds said of some of the lines, noting she did not anticipate compounding equipment malfunctions like printers running out of ink.<\/p>\n

As to Thompson\u2019s accusation that she hadn\u2019t supported his requests for funding and assistance, Bonds fired back directly: \u201cHe\u2019s out of his mind,\u201d she said, adding that the agency\u2019s day-to-day staff would readily disagree with his assessment.<\/p>\n

Alice Miller, a senior policy adviser and former executive director with the elections board, similarly disputed Thompson\u2019s characterization of the Council member, adding that Bonds has \u201creally tried to advocate to get us what we need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond voting technology, though, Thompson also said that human nature may have played a role in the lines at polling places and delayed reporting of election results.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started going to vote centers yesterday morning and they were pretty empty and as the day went on, a lot of people left it until the last minute,\u201d he said. (D.C. sent every registered voter a mail ballot in mid-May, and had a weeklong period of early voting before the primary election.)<\/p>\n

While Tuesday\u2019s delays have passed, there\u2019s still more waiting to come: Tens of thousands of late-arriving mail ballots have yet to be counted, meaning that the first tabulation rounds under ranked-choice voting may not happen until this weekend<\/u><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Read more Florida Fliers Rage Against Trump International Airport<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Old voting machines, ranked-choice voting \u2014 and plenty of finger-pointing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-metro"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Was D.C. Slow to Report Results on Election Night? - Modern Home Journals<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/modernhomejournals.com\/?p=546\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Was D.C. 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