The University of Michigan professor whose students successfully hacked a prototype D.C. elections voting site isn’t the only interesting name on the witness list for Friday’s council hearing on the board of elections’ handling of the primary. Ron Moten, the Mayor Adrian Fenty campaign strategist and Peaceoholics founder, will be there, too.
Professor Alex Halderman, whose students busted into a D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics website designed to allow voters registered in D.C. but live elsewhere, is sure to cause a buzz. His students successfully inserted their school’s fight song so it played after a vote was cast. It wasn’t illegal because the board of elections asked outsiders to test the site.
But Moten, the most outspoken member of Fenty’s campaign, is sure to hurl some strong words at the board and the council.
“To me, the race was stolen,” he told The Washington Examiner. “The Fenty campaign received a letter from the (U.S.) Justice Department saying we couldn’t take people to vote and then to a go-go (concert), which was part of our strategy… but nothing seemed to happen when Gray’s campaign was caught giving gift cards for votes.”
The weekend before the primary, a video, which Moten said was filmed by his son, surfaced that showed someone allegedly from the Gray campaign offering gift cards to someone so they could vote. Gray’s people later said the person was not affiliated with their campaign and that gift card handout was organized by Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry’s estranged wife, Cora Masters Barry.
