Posted on 11/07/2013 3:07:41 PM PST by Kenny
Republican Mark Obenshain held a 219 vote lead in the race to be Virginia's next Attorney General, with results in from all the state's 2,558 precincts.
The count is even narrower than Bob McDonnell's 327-vote lead over Creigh Deeds in the 2005 race to be attorney general, but it's as certain to end in a recount.
Meanwhile, of the four House of Delegates seats where less than 1 percentage point separated the candidates with a handful of precincts still outstanding last night, the GOP has held onto three. One race, where John Bell is challenging Del. David Ramadan, R-Loudoun is still neck and neck, with one precinct still to be counted. Ramadan has a slight lead and the precinct is strongly Republican.
The margins in all four are less than 1 percentage point, however, which gives the loser the right to petition for a recount.
After a night that saw Democrats elected governor and lieutenant governor, Republicans hoped Obenshain could prevent a sweep of statewide executive branch offices. In Hampton Roads, Herring performed well in Newport News, Hampton and Norfolk, while Obenshain won the majority of votes in Virginia Beach and narrowly carried Chesapeake.
The race between Obenshain and Herring, a Loudoun County Democrat, was largely defined by the current occupant of the office, Republican Ken Cuccinelli, who lost his bid for governor Tuesday evening.
Obenshain and Herring both sought at times to distance themselves from Cuccinelli, including his controversial decision to sue the University of Virginia to obtain a former professor's research on climate change.
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
Oh, we found some ballots in my back seat!
There was a mess of disinformation last night. But today someone I trust (from work) told me to relax, we won. Of course, he probably just wanted me to stop bothering him:)
I’m not sure how they got there, but I found a whole box of ballots in my trunk. And I’m in Texas!
Oh, wait, we do this differently here. First, we count the ballots and THEN we lose them.
That’s what I suspected. I don’t know how anyone can relax with the Dead vote still outstanding.
This scenario in the AG race brings to mind the Franken vs. Coleman US Senate race in 2008. Not sure, but I would think that the state officials overseeing this recount are Republicans, unlike Minnesota back then.
I fear the same thing. I will never know why Coleman gave up, had to have been a huge payoff or very effective threat.
VA has pretty good controls in place. We’ve long required ID, and that’s tightened up in the past year. Polls were purged over the past year, knocking out 40K inactive voters.
At my polling place on TU we had to send away a young woman who voted last year in the precinct at her college, but never changed her registration. I think that student vote scenario repeated itself throughout the state.
I just checked the web site, and Obenshain is up 777.
One more day of provisionals, but there were not that many provisionals to start with. And hopefully, our side’s provisionals will come in more than the other side’s provisionals.
Also, Ramaden is listed as the winner, although he was one of the close races.
We managed to win all but one of the races where the votes were within 400 of each other.
We did really well in fact with our gerrymandering, capturing 67 out of 100 seats, with only 54 percent of the vote.
Real gerrymandering is what we had in Texas back when a majority would vote Republican and the bog majority of elected to Congress were Democrats.
I read on facebook today that they were asking provisional ballot voters to contact the election board to make sure their ballots counted.
This message just came from Pat Mullins: (RPV Chairman)
I just got off the phone with our legal team. Thousands of votes for Mark Obenshain may not get counted unless you take action RIGHT NOW.
There are more than 2,000 voters who cast provisional ballots on election day. Those people have to come back to their registrar’s office and show their ID to get their ballots for Mark Obenshain counted.
If you filled out a provisional ballot that was placed in a GREEN ENVELOPE, you MUST return to your registrar’s office by NOON on Friday or your vote may not count.
Let me say that again: if you voted by provisional ballot (in the green envelope), you have less than 24 hours to bring your ID back to the registrar or YOUR VOTE MAY NOT BE COUNTED.
If you have any questions at all, please call us here at (804) 780-0111. Our team will tell you what you need to do and where you need to go to get your vote counted!
This election is coming down to a few hundred votes. Your vote could mean the difference between winning and losing. Please make sure your vote for Mark Obenshain counts!!!
I heard on call-in radio (AM 790) while driving to work in Hampton VA this morning, responses from a couple of callers regarding voter irregularities. Both of the callers were non-white: one had voted for the libertarian candidate for governor, but on the official VA election website, her precinct reported 0 votes for the libertarian; another tried to vote for the black republican lt-gov candidate (Jackson), but the voting machine indicated her vote was cast for the democrat! Arrived at work, so did not hear further call-ins.
But if it's not less than a .5% difference the challenger has to pay the cost of the recount, unless he wins.
Sounds like the results are close enough for the Democrats to exercise dome post election magic.
There is almost nothing you can do in Virginia to work magic.
About the only place might be a fight if there were absentee ballots rejected, or not rejected; but we have not traditionally had problems with absentee ballots.
Our recounts tend to be less dramatic than some, as we are not re-examining ballots, but rather just checking all the reported numbers from the machines to make sure nobody made a transcription error or missed a machine or double-counted.
And of course, these checks are already done after the election is over, which is why you can see some changes the next day from the immediate reports. So the chances of finding a big error are small. The two parties know what to expect in each precinct, and have already been looking into any discrepancies to see if there is a logistical error.
Not saying we can’t worry, just that we aren’t going to be holding up ballots to look at holes.
The biggest thing now is the provisionals. There were not that many (a few thousand total apparently), but nobody knows the split between democrat and republican, or how many will turn out to be good ballots, and how many will be thrown away legitimately.
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