Legislation also seeks to clear up name confusion on ballot
A bill introduced to the D.C. Council would cut in half the city’s two-week early voting period, part of an effort by at-large Councilman Phil Mendelson to attack the name confusion that nearly sunk his re-election.
Called the “Confusion in Election Amendment Act of 2010,” the bill would also require the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics to clarify on the ballot a candidate’s identify when there is the potential “for confusion among voters about the identity of a candidate because of the similarity of his or her name to another candidate, elected, or well-known individual.”
The bill was co-introduced by at-large Councilman Michael A. Brown, whose name appeared to have mixed-up D.C. voters when they were asked by a Washington Post poll who’d they support in the at-large councilman’s Democratic primary race. Michael A. Brown wasn’t running against the incumbent Mendelson, but D.C. shadow senator Michael D. Brown was. The Post poll, released just a few days before early voting started on Sept. 4, found Michael D. Brown was trouncing Mendelson 41 percent to 29 percent.
The poll sent Mendelson into a frantic name-clarification campaign. It worked, and when the votes were counted Mendelson picked up nearly 63 percent of the vote to Michael D. Brown’s 28 percent.
Cutting the early voting period from two weeks to one, Mendelson said, would potentially give candidates more time to deal with issues like name confusion before voting started.
“We want to expand access to voting, but on the other hand I believe elections are about focusing on issues and candidates, which is better serviced when the vote is at one point in time,” he said.
Councilman Brown said he won’t likely support the shortening of early voting in the bill, but he’s certain he wants a law that addresses name confusion.
“We thought BOEE had a duty to address this. They didn’t, so now we’ll make sure they do,” Brown said.
The bill’s language will likely change, Brown said. That’s probably a good thing, because as it’s written, it “does not provide a lot of direction to the board on what ought to be adopted,” said board of elections spokeswoman Alysoun McLaughlin.
“Right now we only concern ourselves with individuals who are on the ballot,” McLaughlin said. “We do not concern ourselves with any potential similarities with people who are not on the ballot.”
