BoatBanter.com - Official: Dems sweep Virginia statewide offices...

Herring wins Virginia attorney general race, elections board announces

RICHMOND (AP) — The state Board of Elections on Monday certified
Democrat Mark Herring as the winner of the Nov. 5 election for Virginia
attorney general, even as the board chairman raised questions about the
“integrity” of the vote tallies.

A recount seems likely in the closest-ever statewide election in
Virginia history, although the losing candidate did not immediately call
for one.

Herring, a state senator from Loudoun County, beat state Sen. Mark
Obenshain (R), by 165 votes out of more than 2 million cast.

Herring had 1,103,777 votes to Obenshain’s 1,103,612, according to the
certified tally.

Herring and Obenshain were running to succeed Attorney General Ken
Cuccinelli (R), who ran unsuccessfully for governor against Democrat
Terry McAuliffe. Should Herring’s victory stand, it would give Democrats
a sweep of all three statewide offices.

The board voted unanimously to certify the results, but Chairman Charles
E. Judd said he was doing so “with question.”

“I’m concerned about the integrity of the data,” Judd said in brief
remarks from the dais in the meeting room of a Capitol Square office
building. “I’m concerned about the lack of uniformity, that there be no
differences in any of the localities in how votes are counted.”

Herring, who has already established a transition committee, issued a
statement thanking elections officials for their work.

“I am gratified that the State Board of Elections today certified me the
winner of a close but fair election,” he said. “I look forward to
serving the people of Virginia as Attorney General.

Obenshain, who has set up a transition team of his own, issued a
statement saying that the results represented “the narrowest percent
vote differential of any U.S. statewide race in the 21st century and the
closest statewide election in modern Virginia history.” He noted that
there have been four statewide elections in the nation since 2000 with
margins within 300 votes, and that in three of the four, the results
were reversed by recounts.

But he nevertheless did not immediately call for a recount.

“Margins this small are why Virginia law provides a process for a
recount,” Obenshain said. “However, a decision to request a recount,
even in this historically close election, is not one to be made lightly.
Virginia law allows 10 days to request a recount. We will make further
announcements regarding a recount well within that time, in order to
ensure the closure and confidence in the results that Virginians deserve.”

Judd, the former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia,
told reporters after the meeting that he was largely concerned about
vote totals that he said shifted repeatedly during the canvass process
in Fairfax County.

“The numbers were changing, ‘Whoops we found another mistake,’ then they
changed the numbers, then we find another mistake, we change the
numbers,” he said.

Judd also questioned why some voters who cast provisional ballots in
heavily Democratic Fairfax were given more time than voters in other
jurisdictions to prove that their ballots should be counted.

Like every other jurisdiction across the state, Fairfax gave voters who
showed up at the polls without proper identification until noon on the
Friday after the election to provide ID, Judd said Fairfax officials
have assured him. But Fairfax extended the deadline for a full week
after the election for voters who cast provisional ballots for other
reasons, such as questions about their registration, Judd said.

Judd also said he was concerned by reports that absentee ballots were
not handled consistently across the state, with some jurisdictions
counting those that did not bear the voter’s signature, and others not.

He said the board is investigating all of those issues.

“Is it going to change the outcome of the election? No,” he said. “What
we want to do is get this, and find out what we can learn from it, and
see what can we do to help the process so this confusion goes away in
the future.”

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Well, Republican voter suppression did not work this time, even though
the Republicans scrubbed 65,000 mostly minority voters off the polls.