A Southwest D.C. advisory neighborhood commissioner facing a rare recall election will appeal the decision of the District’s elections board that sparked the impending vote, she said Monday.
Mary Williams, a Ward 6 commissioner, submitted to the Board of Elections and Ethics 18 affidavits from her constituents who said they were fooled into signing petitions calling for her ouster. She also contested dozens of petition signatures as invalid. But the board, acting on the recommendation of the registrar of voters, last week upheld the petitions, setting into motion a possible Nov. 7 recall election.
It would be only the third such vote since 1979.
“I do not know why the Board rejected the affidavits, but I do plan to appeal this decision and continue this fight,” Williams said in an e-mail.
Williams has the right to appeal to the courts or to the full three-member elections board — as her case was only heard by one member, a BOEE spokesman said.
Her position is being challenged by a constituent, Sydney McMahan, who claims she is a “shameless self-promoter” whose tenure has been “marked by frequent clashes with voters as well as many of her own neighbors.”
McMahan also charged the commissioner with launching a “disastrously unsuccessful smear campaign to recall” Ward 6 Council Member Sharon Ambrose.
In her challenge, Williams claims that McMahan did not show signers her response to the recall, which was printed on the petitions, and that he lied to voters about her stances on certain issues, notably construction of the nearby Washington Nationals’ stadium.
“I have never voted in support of the stadium, and I have always voted and advocated for affordable and low-income housing, which includes public housing,” Williams wrote to The Examiner. “I have done nothing but work on behalf of my constituents.”
