Election problems in DC, MD primaries lead to calls for officials to resign

WASHINGTON - Voters stood in line for as long as five hours Tuesday in D.C. and many reported never receiving their mail-in ballots, leading to questions over how elections officials will be prepared for the general election in November.

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Calls for top election officials to resign

Calls are growing for top elections officials in DC and Maryland to resign after a chaotic primary in both states Tuesday amid the coronavirus pandemic and protests over police brutality across the region.

People voting at Malcolm X Elementary School in Southeast, D.C. had some of the longest waits, partially due to social distancing restrictions that severely limited the number of in-person polling places and kept the number of voters in each precinct to just 10.

Yet elections officials also conceded that more people than they expected turned out to vote on election day, despite a push to get people to vote by mail.

"You should have had more people. You knew more people was gonna come on the last day," said Poet Taylor, a Ward 8 voter.

CORONAVIRUS IN DC, MARYLAND AND VIRGINIA

Council member Elissa Silverman, (I)-At-Large, is now calling for an outside audit of Tuesday's primary and the resignation of the chair of the Board of Elections Michael Bennett.

Bennett did not answer questions from FOX 5 Wednesday.

"We need to figure out what went wrong. We need to make corrections and adjustments and make sure that we have a voting system with integrity that is going to have the full confidence of our electorate for the very important election in November," said Silverman.

In Maryland, there are reports that up to a million ballots were delayed and some experienced packed parking lots which prevented them from dropping off ballots before the deadline Tuesday night.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Everything You Need to Know

Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford has called on the state elections administrator to resign because of problem with that state's primary.

FOX 5 asked election officials in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia how COVID-19 might impact plans for the presidential election in November and how they will avoid problems like what happened in the D.C. and Maryland primaries. Officials have not responded.