Yesterday’s stunning events, providing a generation of voters (and door knockers, post-card writers, phone callers) the bluntest “every vote counts” example, should turn Virginians’ eyes north — to the 28th District where the Democratic Party candidate, Joshua Cole, is behind the Republican by 82 votes. On Thursday, tomorrow, the 28th will go into a recount. An 82-vote margin, with fighting over every questionable ballot, is a huge margin to make up with a total of under 24,000 votes.
No matter who ends up top in Thursday’s recount, the situation won’t be settled in what can, politely, be called an extremely troubled election situation.
- There were 55 absentee ballots ‘stuck’ in the Post Office that, due to no fault of the voters, ended up not making to the polls in time and thus were not counted. Decisions have been made … and those votes will never be counted and those voters were disenfranchised.
- Over 100 voters were mistakenly issued ballots in the wrong House District (back and forth between the 28th and 88th Districts) (147 erroneously cast ballots with another 237 mis-assigned voters not voting due, perhaps, to that confusion over registrations).
To reiterate, as the Cole campaign laid out to me:
The 55 absentee ballots are no longer in play. The registrar claimed they were late and would not count them. Additionally the court ruled not to count these ballots. The issue that we are currently dealing with are 147 ballots that have been cast in the wrong district. Because of an error in data that the Virginia Department of Elections used to determine which district voters should vote in we now have a large amounts of citizens who have been disenfranchised.
As the Washington Post editorial board put it, “Virginia’s House election is irreparably tainted” and they argued that this is a situation demanding a special election … or, as they put it, a “do-over”.
After Thursday’s recount, this likely be in the court-room … and, well, the stakes are high for what could well be a special election.
If the recount remains within the ‘margin’ of mis-assigned ballots, we should expect that Joshua Cole will file a contest of his election results per Virginia Election Code § 24.2-803 (“Contest of election to General Assembly”). That seems likely to occur nearly immediately (as the contest needs to be filed within 3 days of his recount which is this Thursday 12/21) and this will be before the results of the lawsuits are known which won’t be until January. That contest Assuming that the contest would then be decided by a House vote. This really will be a mess but could well simply turn into a 51/49 Democratic majority as the House, with that seat in contest and without a sitting Delegate. Unless, well, the House vote is done by the “old house” with old makup of 66/34. Virginia’s election code seems vague on how the House would decide. It just says:
The House, in its judgment, may find for the contestant and declare him elected, find for the contestee and confirm his election, or declare the election void and order a writ of election” [another election].
In other words, things are fluid; parliamentary junkees are dusting off Roberts’ Rules of Order and scouring every bit of Virginia history for leverage, and, well, the legislative balance might not be determined before the Delegates arrive in Richmond to start their session.
With that in mind, the Cole campaign requests that:
Readers should stay continue to watch the court proceedings and if a special election does occur we will need volunteers and support to mobilize voters for the new election.
Yesterday’s recount created a split House of Delegates. The massive energy that will be put into supporting Cole in a special election could well see that turned into a Democratic Party majority in the House of Delegates when the legislative session opens.
Note: Cross-posted from Blue Virginia.