Almost a week has passed since the general election. One of the more interesting set of races was in Virginia, in which the Governor and Lieutenant Governor positions were won by Democrats, and the Attorney General race was narrowly in favor of the Republican Mark Obenshain over Democrat Mark Herring. Since last Tuesday, precincts across the state have been correcting their counts. As of this morning, Obenshain was up by a mere 17 votes out of some 2.2 million votes tallied.
Over the past few days, discrepancies, including a missing tally from an entire machine, have come to light in the Democratic stronghold of Richmond. A couple of hours ago, a hearing was held by the Richmond electoral board to clarify those discrepant or suspicious results in eight precincts. The rather dramatic review of those eight precincts netted Herring a total of 132 votes, giving the Democrat a lead of 115 votes.
The Republicans immediately demanded a review of ten more precincts. The request was granted, and those are being examined as I write this post. But, the first five precincts examined so far have resulted in exactly zero changes—they keep their election day tallies. I note that the Richmond electoral board is composed of two Republicans and one Democrat, so it will be hard for Republicans to concoct rational conspiracy theories around the hearings (as if “rational” has ever been a criterion!).
Of course we are still a long way from having this resolved. The loser will almost certainly request a recount, although N in Seattle tells me that the Virginia recounts rules are far more restrictive than what we are used to here in Washington. And then there will be the inevitable lawsuit a la the first Gregoire–Rossi race in Washington or the Franken–Coleman race in Minnesota.
The other likely set of changes to the vote count will come from about 500 outstanding provisional ballots. Most outstanding provisionals will come from blue-leaning areas—the great majority from Fairfax County, and a handful from Roanoke city. These will be adjudicated through tomorrow afternoon, when the final tallies must be certified. It is always dicey projecting provisional ballots, but we should expect Herring to pick up at least a thin majority of the provisional votes that are accepted. (BTW: there was a flap over the weekend about “rule changes” in who could represent provisional voters. The flap turns out to be pretty much bogus.)
So it looks damn likely that Democrats will have swept the three statewide races in Virginia. Given that the current Virginia Attorney General and failed gubernatorial candidate, Ken Cuccinelli, was openly boasting about being the first AG to sue the federal government over ObamaCare, his gubernatorial loss combined with the loss of the Republican in the AG slot would be a stunning symbolic victory!
Sources:
This post was written as the Richmond City electoral board was holding its hearing. I was getting my information from a number of Twitter feeds from on-site people. The best feeds, by far, were from Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) and Joe St. George (@JoeStGeorge).
Some background on the issues in Richmond and other issues in the election can be found in (amid the chaff) in the post and comment thread here.
Roger Rabbit’s Conspiracy Theory*
“I note that the Richmond electoral board is composed of two Republicans and one Democrat, so it will be hard for Republicans to concoct rational conspiracy theories around the hearings (as if “rational” has ever been a criterion!).”
That may explain why the discrepancies happened in the first place.
* Republicans indulge in conspiracy theories daily, so why can’t I have one too? Why should Republicans get all the conspiracy theories? Republicans want monopolies on everything. They should learn to share.
Virginia is turning blue because it’s a bedroom suburb of Washington, D.C., and it’s hard to find anyone there who’s in favor of shutting down the government, which provides most of the employment around there. If the South rises again, Virginia will fight for the Union next time.
Shutting down factories, looting pension funds, and laying people off is a pretty good way of getting people to vote for your opponents. Does the GOP have a death wish? It seems that way.
@3, I think the RETHUGS are in for personal short term profits. i.e. “once I have mine I’m outa here. Who the fuck cares about anyone else?”
Meanwhile …
“A white conservative won a seat on the Houston Community College Board of Trustees after sending out flyers in his predominantly black neighborhood that showed stock images of African-Americans and included an endorsement by a family member who has the same name as a popular local black politician.”
http://www.theonion.com/articl.....e-b,34521/
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/......khou.html
@5 Here’s another report:
“A white anti-gay activist won a local election after leading voters to believe he is African American. Dave Wilson … narrowly won a seat on the Houston Community College Board of Trustees after pretending to be black in his predominantly African American district, KHOU 11 News reported Friday.
“KHOU offered details on how Wilson, a conservative Republican, misled voters on his race: ‘Wilson … printed direct mail pieces strongly implying that he’s black. His fliers were decorated with photographs of smiling African-American faces — which he readily admits he just lifted off websites — and captioned with the words ‘Please vote for our friend and neighbor Dave Wilson.’ One of his mailers said he was ‘Endorsed by Ron Wilson,’ which longtime Houston voters might easily interpret as a statement of support from a former state representative of the same name who’s also African-American. Fine print beneath the headline says ‘Ron Wilson and Dave Wilson are cousins,’ a reference to one of Wilson’s relatives living in Iowa.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....51625.html
Meanwhile …
The Teahadists are already trashing the GOP’s best White House hope for 2016.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....f=politics
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Don’t you love watching Republicans devour each other? What a bunch of cannibals. =:-D<
In other election news, progressive darling Elizabeth Warren will challenge Wall Street sycophant Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. I know this is so, because
The New Republic told me so!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....f=politics
@2 Not quite. It’s more like it’s become two separate states (similar to the east/west divide in WA and OR). Northern Virginia is dependent on DC (and the Pentagon); it’s a small part of the state geographically but has a third of the state’s population and is mostly very blue. The rest of the state really doesn’t consider NoVa part of “their” state, and that’s a more typical Confederate state – red, with few large cities, but divided on racial and urban/rural lines. It’s the NoVa counties and the black population of the rest of the state that makes VA such a swing state.
Meanwhile, there’s two significant (if not unprecedented) local votes possibly heading to recounts: the SeaTac minimum wage initiative and the Sawant/Conlin race for Seattle City Council. Both have tightened over the last week and are now in recount territory. I’m more interested in those than a downticket race 3000 miles away.
Pete @ 9,
Meanwhile, there’s two significant (if not unprecedented) local votes possibly heading to recounts: the SeaTac minimum wage initiative and the Sawant/Conlin race for Seattle City Council….I’m more interested in those than a downticket race 3000 miles away.”
Fair enough. But the SSC #2 and Seatac Prop 1 races are not nearly as close as the VAAG race, and since I don’t live in Seatac or Seattle, these two races are just not as interesting to me as what is happening in VA. Sorry.
# 9: Not sure what you consider to be “NORVA”. Sure, the extended DC suburbs count. But their’s also the Norfolk area (lots of federal/union work at the shipyards there) and Richmond.
Granted, anything south of Richmond and it’s suburbs is conservative Repubican, and when you get down to southern Virginia or the Shenandoah Valley the people can be pretty crazy.