[4] In each of the 16 presidential elections, the district has overwhelmingly voted for the Democratic candidate, with no margin less than 56.5 percentage points.
In the 2000 presidential election, Barbara Lett-Simmons, an elector from the district, left her ballot blank to protest its lack of voting representation in Congress.
[9] Nearly 100 years prior in the 1870s, the congressional district briefly existed before Congress abolished it in favor of direct rule.
[12] The enactment of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act in 1973 provided for an elected mayor for the first time in nearly a century.
In each of the mayoral elections, the district has solidly voted for the Democratic candidate, with no margin less than 14 percentage points.
The ANC system was created in 1974 through a referendum (73 percent voted "yes") in the District of Columbia Home Rule Act.
[20] Congressman Don Fraser (D-Minn) and D.C. resident Milton Kotler helped to draft the ANC language in the Home Rule Act based on the success of Adams Morgan Organization (AMO) in Adams Morgan and on a 1970 report of the Minneapolis Citizen League, as well as on related neighborhood corporations in Pittsburgh; Brooklyn, New York; Chicago; and Columbus, Ohio.
[21][22][23] ANCs consider a wide range of policies and programs affecting their neighborhoods, including traffic, parking, recreation, street improvements, liquor licenses, zoning, economic development, police protection, sanitation and trash collection, and the district's annual budget.
[38] Minor political parties do not meet those qualifications or are established for the first time, and they may only participate in general elections.