The nation's capital, of all places, is joining the roster of just nine states that don't have online voter registration.
The D.C. Board of Elections has pulled the plug on the app and online portal that allowed residents to register or update their voter information, saying the software had proved unreliable and had too many bugs to fix.
It's the second significant election snafu this month in Washington, where such snags receive outsized attention because so many policymakers and people in the political industry are among the 700,000 residents.
A questionnaire mailed two weeks ago — meant to smooth a November election planned for the first time to be almost entirely by mail because of the pandemic — had a design flaw rendering the collected data minimally useful. That prompted bipartisan skepticism about the city's competence to conduct elections after a June primary marred by some of the longest lines in the country and more than 1,000 lost applications for absentee ballots.
That confidence gap will only grow with the death of the Vote4DC system, which officials concede is not likely to be replaced by Nov. 3 because no vendor has been found and extensive testing of a new system would be required.
Residents can still register to vote by mail — or in person on Election Day or at an early voting site, hardly ideal during the Covid-19 outbreak. And so Councilmember Charles Allen, who chairs the committee that oversees the elections board, demanded Wednesday that a new app be "up and running" in time for the election.
There are not many hot local contests on the ballot, and the main interest is in whether Joe Biden will carry the District's 3 electoral votes with more than Hillary Clinton's 91 percent share four years ago.
"Either it wouldn't transmit information or it would go down, or it just wasn't doing the things that it was supposed to do," Board of Elections Chairman Michael Bennett told TV station WUSA in explaining the move. "The vendor wasn't able to make the corrections in a timely manner, so we just took it down rather than continue to have people use it and be confused."
Of 40,000 new or updated registrations last year in the fast-growing city, two in five were through the Vote4DC system. That's higher than the one-in-six estimated share in the 40 states that have embraced online registration as both the 21st century best practice and a cost-saver. (A Pew Charitable Trusts survey five years ago found that each registration on paper costs between 50 cents and $2.34 more to process than when done using the internet.)
U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One on August 14, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Trump is traveling to Long Island to tour law enforcement facilities in Nassau County and rally support for local Republican candidates ahead of the upcoming midterm elections
Travel Far Enough, You Meet Yourself
Is it possible that our President has simply not traveled enough?
Born and raised in Queens and attending Fordham University in the Bronx, Donald Trump has no record of traveling outside New York until he was over 20, when he transferred to a college in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania. Were his formative years amiss, then, in his learning about other places and other people?
Is his view akin to the famous New Yorker cover by Saul Steinberg, an illustration of the United States with New York City as the epicenter of the country and the Hudson River the border of the known world? We can now at least add Washington, D.C., and Mar-a-Lago to the map of “the realm.”
Our President has now traveled some, but what we recommend is another kind of travel. Not a state-sponsored trip or a venture to scout locations for future Trump Towers. This would be a genuine travel experience, enriching and eye-opening, showcasing other cultures and ways of living.
It will extend far beyond viewing military parades, hobnobbing with such “understanding” world leaders as Kim Jong Un, or taking tea with the King.
WHERE, then, should the President go? As Elon Musk’s Starship spacecraft is not yet ready to take passengers to Mars, perhaps he could explore our own vast country?
Maybe he could travel to “flyover country,” the farming states, where his ying-yanging tariffs and trade restrictions have played havoc with rural economies. Or possibly to California, number one in homeless U. S. citizens, and while there, regale homeless veterans (approximately 32,500 nationwide) with tales of his brave exploits invading and bombing foreign countries.
Or he might tour the Great Lakes, and rename the other four?
WHEN should he go? This will be tough, as he is very busy building his ballroom and renaming bodies of water.
How about a trip in early November, around the midterm elections? Despite the long-discredited accusation of widespread voter fraud, it would be reassuring to know he might be so caught up divvying out ladles of soup in a soup kitchen somewhere that he wouldn’t remember to deploy the military for “election security.”
HOW will he travel? He should definitely not take his Qatari-donated, newly renovated 747, especially after last time, when he had to be smuggled off clandestinely in a catering truck. It’s unlikely any traveling companions, like the Secretary of State or of the Treasury, are going to fall for the ruse a second time. Besides, we may need those people. No more decoys!
Perhaps the President could fly commercially, although this likely would expose him to undue suffering. Without gold bathroom fixtures and maple wood floors, the trip will be no “Luxury Experience.” If only he still had his “Trump Shuttle,” bought with a massive loan he later defaulted on, saying then, “I’m smart. I got out at a good time.”
Considering the potential pitfalls, maybe it’s best the President travel incognito, disguised perhaps as an elderly woman wearing a lot of bronzer.
Wherever, whenever, however: our President needs a vacation.
Moreover, we need a vacation from him.
If the President refuses our travel suggestions, here’s another idea:
Let’s get him a pet! He has never owned a pet. As we know with our children, pets teach essential life lessons: compassion and empathy; they instill a sense of responsibility. There is a well-established connection between those who can care for a pet and those who can care for people.
So, which pet should we choose? A puppy? A kitten? A boa constrictor?
Imagine, the President may even decide he likes having a pet. After all, what is more obedient than a well-trained dog, besides possibly the Cabinet? And what is more docile than a sweet kitten, other than plausibly the Supreme Court?
The President may even become more mellow with a pet afoot and less likely to slap tariffs on our allies, or attempt to annex our neighbors, or bully our Congress. (Realizing, of course, a bully requires active participation from the bullied to maintain his status.)
Maybe we should do both: get the President a pet and devise a travel plan for him. (Do you think we could possibly convince him to leave his phone at home?)
Let’s go for it! After all:
Travel far enough, you meet yourself. (David Mitchell)
And for our President, that would likely be the most profound discovery of all.
Amy Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."