By Frank Leone
If you haven’t yet, be sure to vote on or before Election Day, November 5th! Washington D.C. has a complicated relationship with Democracy as detailed in a recent post. DC’s first vote was in a presidential election of 1800, when residents’ votes counted in Maryland or Virginia. There was a polling place at Suters Tavern in Georgetown. As recounted by Christian Hines (Early Recollections of Washington City, 1866), “[a]fter the election had continued some time, and the bad whiskey had begun to operate, some of the crowd began to dispute and quarrel, and perhaps a few already had the mortification of being knocked down.” The day included a match between two partisans that resulted in Mr. Shipley gouging out the eyes of Mr. Lovejoy. In Georgetown, Thomas Jefferson’s elector defeated John Adams’ by a vote of 152 to 138.
Things were calmer 164 years later, with the passage of the 23rd Amendment, which allowed Washingtonians to choose three presidential electors. Turnout was so high that the polling hours were extended to midnight and Lyndon Johnson beat Barry Goldwater, achieving 85.5% of the vote.
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