Starkly contrasted against each other, the ballot boxes stood surrounded by a barbed wire barrier and in full view of the U.S. Capitol, the very building in which District residents have been denied voting representation for the better part of 200 years. This contrast seems to have been the point of the day — in the country whose government is actively crusading for democracy abroad, was it not a wonder that the 600,000 residents of an ill-placed city could not similarly exercise those rights?