Auditors with the D.C. Office of Campaign finance are now looking at the Gray for Mayor campaign’s failure to report as in-kind contributions the free rides taxi drivers say they gave to Gray voters.
On Thursday, The Washington Examiner reported that Mayor Vince Gray’s campaign failed to report more than $6,000 worth of taxi rides that brought voters to polling stations. According to organizers, more than 400 rides were coordinated at the request of Gray’s campaign for the general and primary elections last year. City regulations require campaigns to report as contributions goods and services they receive that would otherwise result in a bill from the provider. The market value of the taxi rides were not reported anywhere in the campaign’s finance reports.
“On the surface, it would appear to bear out,” that the free taxi rides for voters should have been reported, OCF spokesman Wesley Williams told The Examiner on Thursday after speaking with the agency’s auditors. “We are including it in the audit.”
OCF launched the audit in April after mayoral candidate Sulaimon Brown accused Gray campaign officials of passing him cash so he could stay in the race.
Williams couldn’t say when the audit would be finished, but noted “we’re in the meat of it.”
