History Suggests Mark Herring May Prevail in Recount

With stories of missing votes in the Virginia Attorney General race such as the one in the Roanoke Times, Virginia sounds like some third world country.  The result is that it will probably be sometime in December before a confirmed winner is announced in the race.  Obviously, I am hoping that Mark Herring makes up the current deficit once provisional ballots and newly found ballots are fully counted.  As a piece in the Washington Post notes, history suggests that there is reason to hope that Mark Obenshain - a creepy Ken Cuccinelli clone - will go down to defeat in the end.  Here are highlights:

The Virginia attorney general’s race appears headed for a recount, with the latest results showing Republican Mark Obenshain leading Democrat Mark Herring by fewer than 800 votes out of about 2.2 million cast.

And according to a study by the group FairVote, Herring is currently well within the margin under which the race could flip in his favor.

The study shows the average statewide recount between 2000 and 2012 shifted the vote total by about 0.03 percent, with the largest shift being 0.11 percent.  According to the latest numbers, Obenshain’s lead over Herring is just more than 0.03 percent.

Now, it should be noted that the vote count will continue to shift as provisional and other ballots continue to be counted. But at this point, it seems a recount could indeed flip the contest to Herring . . . . .

Here are more details from the Roanoke Times piece cited above:

Fairfax County election officials focused on a faulty voting machine as the cause for an unusually low number of absentee ballots recorded in one of the county's voting districts.

The Fairfax County Electoral Board said it would meet Saturday to hear the results of an investigation into the apparent voting discrepancy and release the results of a canvass on Sunday.

Statewide, Republican state Sen. Mark D. Obenshain of Harrisonburg has a 1,272-vote lead over state Sen. Mark R. Herring, a Loudoun Democrat. But Herring won Fairfax County by a wide margin in Tuesday's election, 60 percent to 38 percent, and up to 2,000 votes could be up for grabs in the canvass.

Some 3,158 provisional ballots also remain to be certified statewide. Those ballots typically involve a voter who lacked an ID or voted in the wrong precinct. Local registrars have until Tuesday to certify those ballots, and the state has until Nov. 25. Either way the votes fall, each candidate is expected to seek a recount.

The combination of the unaccounted Fairfax County absentee ballots and the provisional ballots make it increasingly likely the successor to Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli won't be known until the state certifies the vote later this month.