Under orders to cut a special election’s budget, the D.C. board of elections has come up with a quick way to save nearly $80,000: Don’t mail a notice of the election to voters. The D.C. Council set aside $590,000 late last year for the election to fill the at-large D.C. Council seat vacated by Kwame Brown when he rose to chairman. That’s about half the cost of a typical citywide election. So the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics has said the city can either open all 143 precincts on a scaled-down budget or rely on 16 voter centers where residents could cast ballots regardless of where they live. Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh, whose committee oversees the elections board, and Mayor Vince Gray have both indicated they want every precinct open. Cheh has asked the board to cut deep. Its latest budget is $768,020, about $115,000 less than an early January proposal for opening all 143 precincts. The biggest savings comes from cutting the nearly $80,000 needed to mail an announcement of the April 26 election to voters.
“The fewer people who know about this, the fewer people who will vote. That in turn favors the candidate with the most money,” said political consultant Chuck Thies, noting the already typical low turnout in a special election.
Board of elections spokeswoman Alysoun McLaughlin said if the mailers are cut the board would rely on the media and the help of community listserves to raise awareness in lieu of the mailer.
The “onus would also be on the candidates to drive voters [to the polls],” McLaughlin said. “Cutting budgets means tough decisions. We’re writing these analyses to help the policy makers make those decisions.”
Meanwhile, sources said, the mayor’s office has not yet found where the cash will come from in the city’s tight budget. A source close to Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi said Gandhi won’t cut a check for the election until the dollars are found.
The board is moving forward with plans to open all the precincts on the assumption the cash will be there, McLaughlin said.
Cheh said she’d like to see details from the board on its plan for informing the public of the election. She suggested using free public radio announcements and distributing fliers at community meetings.
“We would have wanted everything to be as it was, but there has to be some nod to reality,” Cheh said.
