The High-Stakes Virginia Election Recount

Virginia continues to make the national media coverage with the closely contested Attorney General Race still unresolved.  Between Ken Cuccinelli clearly trying to suppress votes through his last minute rule change directive to the State Board of Elections and third world like incompetency in some precincts, Virginia is hardly putting its best face forward to the rest of the nation and the world.  I continue to hope for a Mark Herring victory because we do not need another lying extremist as Attorney General of Virginia.  Four years of Ken Cuccinelli is far too much as it is.  A piece in The Daily Beast reflects the attention the still unresolved race is receiving.  Here are highlights:

Now this is very interesting indeed: It suddenly looks as if the Democrat may win the attorney general election in Virginia. It seems they found a missing ballot box from Richmond on Monday afternoon, and Mark Herring vaulted to a 115-vote lead over Mark Obenshain, out of 2.2 million cast. The counting of the provisional ballots is supposed to end Tuesday, and then there will be a recount, if the tally is within 1 percent (it is) and if the loser requests it. But as of Monday afternoon, those following the proceedings closely said it seems highly unlikely that Obenshain can make up the difference, narrow as it is.

Is this a big deal? You bet it is. If Herring wins, the Democrats will have the run of Virginia. The governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and both senators will be Democrats. In Virginia! That hasn’t happened since 1969, which was a completely different political universe. One of those senators, Harry F. Byrd Jr., was a thoroughgoing segregationist. So that’s good news for the Democratic side.

And likewise it’s terrible news for the Tea Party. The Virginia GOP went ultra-hard right this year—instead of primaries, it held a nominating convention over-attended by ideologues who chose the medieval Ken Cuccinelli, about whom we know; the Bronze Age lieutenant governor candidate E.W. Jackson, who made a series of outlandish and reactionary comments and got mopped up by double digits; and Obenshain. He of course underwent far less national observation and scrutiny than Cuccinelli did, and he drew far fewer cameras than the bombastic Jackson, but his views are essentially indistinguishable from the gubernatorial candidate’s—transvaginal probes, criminalization of any failure by a woman to report a miscarriage to the police, hating on gay people, the whole ball of fetid, intolerant wax.

[A] Herring win would seem to make a future Obenshain gubernatorial term that much less likely.

It’s not for want of trying. As recently as Friday, the Virginia State Board of Elections, controlled by Republicans, voted to change a rule in the law that covers how provisional ballots are scrutinized. This business is a little technical and confusing, but basically the question revolved around whether a voter had to be present if he or she wanted the government body going through the provisional ballots to count his or her vote. Heavily Democratic Fairfax County and the state disagreed about both the rule and past practice, and the state overruled the county, which appeared to give Obenshain the advantage because the ruling would have the effect of making it harder for Fairfax voters, who are more Democratic than not, to have their ballots counted. That ruling is still in effect and still would help Obenshain, but it now seems mooted by the late developments from Richmond.

If the Virginia GOP ends up going 0-for-3 here, that’s a watershed moment, I think. I know; we’re just talking about a few hundred votes shifting around. But winning is winning and losing is losing. Bill Buckner only missed that ball by 2 inches. If the Republican Party of Virginia has no statewide officeholder for the next four years—and of course if the Democrats from McAuliffe on down do their jobs adequately—it would, speaking of climate change, alter the political temperature of the state considerably between now and 2016.

[I]f the results as of Monday evening hold, 2013 will stand as the most embarrassing election in Virginia for Republicans in years. Maybe in recent history. So maybe Virginia is for lovers. Of sanity.

Those Virginians who value reason and sanity need to hope that Herring maintains his lead.  The thought of Obenshain as Attorney General is nothing short of frightening.