Washington, D.C., Councilwoman Elissa Silverman said a recently filed complaint against a poll she conducted ahead of the 2022 primary election in Ward 3 is a “political stunt.”
Silverman told the Washington Examiner that she did not break the rules and said both the complaint, filed Tuesday by City Council at-large candidate Karim Marshall, and other reports of the situation are inaccurate.
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“It’s not factually accurate,” she said. “It’s a political stunt. I played by the rules, and certain people didn’t like the outcome of the election.”
Silverman, who is up for reelection this November for her at-large seat, denied sharing polling results with any council members or candidates, despite Marshall’s decision to ask the city’s Office of Campaign Finance to investigate whether Silverman broke the rules using taxpayer campaign funds to conduct two polls.
Marshall, who has over 12 years of government experience studying legislation, said that after hearing about the poll from constituents, he decided to look over the campaign finance laws. He referenced alleged collaboration between Silverman and former Ward 3 City Council candidate Tricia Duncan, with whom Silverman allegedly shared the results of the poll. Both women threw their support behind Ward 3 City Council candidate Matt Frumin.
“It appears as though this wasn’t so much just about the use of funds,” Marshall told the Washington Examiner about why he filed the complaint. “The thing that’s a little more concerning is the potential collaboration between campaigns and then, from a clean government perspective, the allocation of the use of public funds.”
The Office of Campaign Finance told the Washington Examiner in an email that the office would “highly advise against collaboration between campaigns” in instances such as assisting with polling or sharing resources, as it would be difficult to “clearly and properly segregate” expenses or expenditures involved.
If the Office of Campaign Finance determines Silverman did not break any rules, Marshall said he is OK with that, but that distinction needs to be clarified for everyone else, noting he rejected proposals from local candidates seeking to collaborate with his campaign after he “came down on his team pretty aggressively” about following the rules.
“If I’m operating from the assumption that campaigns are supposed to stand on their own two feet, but it turns out we’re actually allowed to coordinate on use of resources, that’s important for us to know as a campaign in and of itself,” Marshall said. “Because there are other people running that we have shared values with, and if it’s OK to coordinate between campaigns, we need to know that, as well.”
Frumin’s main opponent for Ward 3, Eric Goulet, claimed in a tweet on June 23 that Silverman used taxpayer funds to pay for a poll “to influence a race in which she was not competing.”
“This was unethical, and possibly illegal conduct, falsely disguised as progressive politics,” Goulet tweeted.
One thing I will be speaking more about involves @tweetelissa‘s use of taxpayer funds to pay for a poll to influence a race in which she was not competing. This was unethical, and possibly illegal conduct, falsely disguised as progressive politics. (3/4)
— Eric Goulet (@EJGoulet) June 23, 2022
Marshall said he declined Goulet’s assistance when the defeated primary candidate reached out to him as the two would have approached the complaint from two different interest areas.
“It’s emotional for him,” Marshall said. “For me, this is just about clarifying the rules. … This isn’t about me being dissatisfied with the results of the election.”
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Silverman’s campaign lists two polls under operating expenditures in a June 10 Fair Elections report. One automated poll, conducted through Amplify, cost $1,200, and another live poll, through TargetSmart, cost $5,000.
