D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty is having trouble getting the support of some of his own party members in straw polls as he asks the board of elections to broaden the voter pool.
Fenty’s lawyers will square off against those working for his rival, D.C. Council Chairman Vince Gray, during a Board of Elections and Ethics hearing Wednesday morning. The mayor’s team is asking for an interpretation of election law to allow voters not affiliated with any party — be it Democrat, Republican or independent — to vote in the primary.
The hearing is just two days after Fenty seemingly surrendered the Ward 5 Democratic party straw poll to Gray. Fenty didn’t show Monday night, and Gray won his seventh of eight straw polls, 818 votes to 108.
“Not only did Fenty not prevail, but it was a resounding defeat,” said District watchdog Dorothy Brizill of D.C. Watch. “When you can’t garner votes from your own party, you go trolling for votes where you can find them.”
But Fenty told The Washington Examiner that he’s just trying to increase turnout for the primary.
“There’s no way you can predict who will vote for you,” the mayor said. “We just want to enlarge the group of people who will be voting.”
Gray’s campaign manager, Adam Rubinson, said that enlarging the group of voters at this late stage would be unfair.
“This is clearly an attempt to game the system at the 11th hour,” Rubinson said. “They want to pull one over on District voters.”
He then accused Fenty of being “hypocritical” for trying to change election rules so close to the primary. Earlier this month, the mayor issued a pocket veto of D.C. Council election law changes, saying he thought they were passed too close to the election and hadn’t had a public hearing.
Fenty countered Rubinson’s accusation.
“We’re asking the board to interpret the laws,” he said. “We’re not changing anything.”
Wednesday’s hearing will be the first big challenge for the board of elections’ new chairman, Togo West. Fenty appointed West late last month with the council’s approval after the board’s previous chairman left to become a Superior Court magistrate judge.
If the board allows unaffiliated voters to cast a ballot in the primary, Gray’s campaign said it will likely appeal.
