Following an interesting debate on the screwups this week at the District’s Board of Elections and Ethics. As Washington City Paper‘s own Loose Lips columnist Mike DeBonis has so capably reported, the vote-counting fiasco of Tuesday night involved the story of a troubled cartridge and an elections office that spent a day scrambling and hunkering down to figure things out.

In the comments section, one Elizabeth Elliott/Foggy Bottom compellingly recounted a tale of bureaucratic horror relating to the city elections operation, concluding with this line:

“If ever there was a case for not giving DC the vote, this fiasco is it.”

Seems that every time we screw something up in D.C., this same argument gets trotted out. Oh, we can’t govern ourselves, so we don’t deserve that voting rep or senator.

Has anyone ever considered that perhaps the caliber of our politicians and bureaucrats might improve a bit if we actually had voting representation. How many qualified public servants do you think have left D.C. in the past few decades just because they have essentially no future leapfrogging to national office from a post in D.C.? How many frustrated residents have left for the ‘burbs—yes because of bad schools and crime, but also because they get enfranchised when they cross the District line?

And one other thing: Doesn’t a poorly run city—which D.C. has pretty much ceased to be—deserve voting rights just as much as a perfectly managed city?