D.C. allowed residents to vote by email in this week's presidential primary

The Washington, D.C., government allowed residents on Tuesday to vote in the presidential primary via email, a decision one official called a "last resort" for those who hadn't received absentee ballots in the mail. 

Washington, like numerous states, had encouraged mail-in voting during the primary season due to concerns that the coronavirus might spread at crowded polling places. Yet many voters who requested such ballots said they hadn't received them, leading to the decision to allow them to vote via email. 

The process is normally considered less safe than either absentee or in-person voting. Rice University computer-science professor Dan Wallach told the Wall Street Journal that "under normal circumstances, this would be considered an epic failure," though he acknowledged that "these are not normal circumstances." 

The decision comes alongside concerns about possible voter fraud as mor politicians push for mail-in voting in the presidential election in November – citing worries that the pandemic may spike if too many people head to the polls. 

There have been several hundred documented cases of voter fraud, including numerous mail-in fraud schemes, since President Trump was elected in 2016.