Incumbent Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans (D) defeated challenger Cary Silverman (D) in Tuesday’s Democratic primary by 1,300 votes, garnering 65 percent of the vote.
“We knew exactly how many people would turn out. We were expecting a 60-30 victory, and got better,” Evans’ campaign manager Keith Carbone said.
Some controversy surrounded the vote tallies. The initial totals from the D.C. Board of Elections contained several irregularities, including 1,500 votes incorrectly attributed as write-ins, a vote count of 9,000 when far fewer people actually voted, and a delay in counting the returns from the West End library polling station.
“There were massive irregularities in the vote count, and the Board of Elections hasn’t explained it yet,” Silverman said. “We need to have a degree of confidence that every vote was counted.”
Silverman admits that the outcome probably will not change but is still pushing for a full explanation.
Early Wednesday, DCBOE announced that the errors were the result of a faulty optical scanner and has since posted corrected results.
