Update on the Special Elections in Fairfax
We are looking at an automatic recount in the 41st House District, where Democrat Eileen Filler-Corn is leading Republican Kerry Bolognese by 37 votes. I will be following this closely and keeping you updated once the recount is finished.
Meanwhile, in the Mason District, Samantha Rucker lost her race to fill the open school board seat, once held by Kaye Kory. Rucker ran against Sandy Evans. Evans won with 56% of the vote, while Rucker only had 43%.
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Posted on March 2, 2010, in Virginia Politics and tagged 2010 Election, 41st House District, Eileen Filler-Corn, Fairfax County, Kerry Bolognese, Mason District, Samantha Rucker, Sandy Evans, School Board. Bookmark the permalink. 6 Comments.
recount not automatic….it has to be requested
No, a source from the party said that it is automatic (since there was a 42 vote difference).
The VA politics blog says: “Virginia law permits a losing candidate to request a recount if the difference is less than 1 percent.” Looks like Kerry won’t request a recount..interesting
Allen had less than 1% diff and choice not to request a recount.
NJM,
You were right. It looks as if Kerry did concede at 10:30 p.m. last night with a 37 vote difference. It was a bad move on his behalf, as he should have taken the automatic recount. There is no doubt that there could have been some discrepancies somewhere along the line.
Actually, it is highly unlikely that there were discrepancies. If you have ever watched the closing procedures at a precinct and then watched the canvass done at the board of elections on election night you will know it is a pretty thorough procedure. And with so few precincts involved it really isn’t likely the result would have changed.
I was an observer during the statewide recount of the 2005 AG race and it isn’t really very accurate to even call it a recount in the sense most people understand the term. It is more of a recanvass and with electronic machines you are just verifying tapes from the machines. There are no paper ballots to recount.
In the 2005 recount I believe the judge overseeing the recount ordered something like ten precincts statewide to be recounted because of possible irregularities. The total shifted by about 35 votes out of the roughly two million cast statewide if I recall correctly.
Bolognese made the right call to concede. It saved the taxpayers the expense and allowed Filler-Corn to be sworn in immediately so the district has representation during the remainder of the current legislative session. He made the class move.
If an election is lost it is lost. You don’t want to do the sour grapes thing and end up being a joke like Norm Coleman in Minnesota. That guy isn’t likely to be elected to anything ever again.
Bolognese likely has a political future. I expect he will run for this seat again in 2011.
Recount in never automatic in Virginia. Under 1/2% the taxpayers pay, between 1/2 and 1%, the candidate can call for a recount but they pay.
After the 2005 recount, seeing how little came into play, legislation was changed to require the “paper ballots” to be “counted again.” This meant that hand counted paper ballots remained hand counted but NOW jurisdictions that used optical scan ballots would have to run them through the system again. In 2005 only the machine tapes were looked at.
Someone in the near future needs to choose a recount in order to see if it affects the vote totals at all. Unlikely in this “single” race ballot.