DC Elections Board Printed Its Voter Guides With the District Flag Upside Down

By design standards, the District’s flag is a fairly simple one—three red stars above two horizontal red bars on a white background. Should be simple enough to cut out and paste on the cover of a government pamphlet that gets sent out to 456,633 registered voters ahead of a general election, right?

Wrong.

The guides being sent to DC voters this week in preparation for the November 4 general election feature the District flag on their cover, with one obvious, bone-headed mistake: the flag is upside down, a glaring error that elicited Twitter groans from some eagle-eyed local government observers.

This upside down flag is why we can’t have nice elections. pic.twitter.com/ugB1oDVn47

— Jason Terry (@JTinDC) October 16, 2014

.@DCBOEE why is the DC flag upside down on your voter guide? pic.twitter.com/WJvetXMzum

— Chewy (@CapCityChewy) October 16, 2014

I mean, when you turn the official DC voter’s guide upside down the flag is right-side up, so they’ve got that going! pic.twitter.com/l5oWWNPma4

— Jesse Byrnes (@jessebyrnes) October 16, 2014

Good grief! “@ChuckThies:DC Bd of Elections prints official voter guide – DC flag upside down (photo via @JTinDC ) pic.twitter.com/47WlsuizfR”

— Tom Sherwood (@tomsherwood) October 16, 2014

Denise Tolliver, a spokeswoman for the DC Board of Elections, claims the upside down flag is part of a game her agency wants voters to play on its website to identify what’s wrong with the voter guide. OK, then.

Find Benjamin Freed on Twitter at @brfreed.

Benjamin Freed

Staff Writer

Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.