Rubio Claims Democrats Want to "Steal" the Florida Elections By Counting All Votes

Lying Marco wants to ignore possible Democrat votes.

The more I see and hear about Marco Rubio anti-democratic bloviating, the more despicable I findA case in point is Rubio - and other Republicans' whining about the recounts that will likely take place in Florida's gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races where it seems that a significant number of votes were not counted.  From the additional votes discovered so far, the winning margins of the supposed Republican victors have shrunk to under the threshold for a manual recount.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at Rubio's shameless effort to have votes not counted.  Here re article highlights:

On Tuesday night in Florida, Democratic senator Bill Nelson conceded a Senate race to Republican Rick Scott, because he was trailing the Florida governor by more than 57,000 voters. Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, meanwhile, conceded Florida’s governor race to Republican Ron DeSantis, because he was trailing the congressman by an even larger margin.

And then, Nelson and Gillum discovered that there were more outstanding votes from heavily Democratic counties than they had realized. By Thursday afternoon, Nelson’s deficit had fallen to just 17,000, or 0.22 percent. State law requires a manual recount of any election with an initial margin under 0.25 percent. Gillum’s deficit, meanwhile, fell to 38,000, or 0.47 percent, which is under the 0.5 percent threshold that triggers an automatic machine recount, under state law.

More significantly (and alarmingly), irregularities began to emerge in Nelson’s pattern of support. Specifically, an aberrant percentage of voters in Broward County marked their ballots for gubernatorial candidates — but left the Senate ballot-line blank.

[U]ndervoting in the Senate race was especially pronounced in Florida’s 24th Congressional District, where no House race was listed (as the incumbent ran unopposed), and thus the Senate race box was even lower down on the ballot’s left-hand side. . . . it is also possible that vote-processing machines in Broward suffered a technical glitch that caused them not to read Senate votes that were properly marked on paper ballots — and if that is the case, then a recount would very likely tip the Senate race to Nelson.

For this and other reasons, lawyers for Nelson and Gillum decided to call on the state of Florida to honor its statutory obligation to perform a recount.

In response, Florida senator Marco Rubio decided to accuse the Democratic Party of conspiring with Broward County election officials to illicitly overturn the will of the electorate, and illegitimately install Bill Nelson into the U.S. Senate.

Rubio offered no evidence to support the claim that Democratic lawyers have been very clear that they don’t want every vote to count, and are merely seeking to win the election by any means necessary (even if that involves not counting all the votes), nor did he specify what “ongoing” violations of the law Broward County election officials were engaged in. He also neglected to mention that the election supervisor who is supposedly trying to rig the election for Nelson was appointed by former Republican governor (and Rubio ally) Jeb Bush.

Many #NeverTrump conservatives like to fantasize about a world in which Marco Rubio won the 2016 GOP nomination — and, as a result, the Republican Party retained its commitment to civility over demagoguery, and democratic ideals over the raw pursuit of power. There are many problems with this fantasy. But two conspicuous ones are that Rubio spent much of his 2016 campaign baselessly accusing America’s first black president of deliberately sabotaging the country (“he knows exactly what he’s doing”); and that he is now telling his supporters, without evidence, that if Bill Nelson wins a recount they should regard the outcome of the 2018 Florida Senate race as illegitimate.

Which suggests that an affinity for reckless demagoguery, and hostility to liberal democratic norms, weren’t qualities that Trump introduced to Republican politics — they were actually embedded deep inside the party all along.

Clinton Camp Will Join Recount Push

Who knows where a recount in three key swing states - Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania - will lead, but at this point I support almost anything that could save the nation from the nightmare of a Donald Trump presidency.  The thought of Trump appointing Supreme Court justices even as he uses the office of the presidency to further enrich himself is stomach wrenching.  Given the unprecedented evidence of Russian efforts to influence the election in favor of Trump, if nothing else the recount will confirm that hacking did not occur.  The down side of that result, of course, is that the foulness and mindlessness of 25% of American's registered voters would be confirmed. The New York Times looks at the recount effort.  Here are excerpts:

The top lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid said Saturday that the campaign would join a third-party candidate’s effort to seek a full recount in Wisconsin, and potentially two other states, though he said the campaign had seen no “actionable evidence” of vote hacking.

In a post on Medium, Marc Elias, the campaign’s general counsel, described an intensive behind-the-scenes effort by the campaign to look for signs of Russian hacker activity or other irregularities in the vote count.

The essay suggested that the campaign was joining the recount effort with little expectation that it would change the result. But many of the campaign’s supporters, picking up on its frequent complaints of Russian interference in the election, have enthusiastically backed the recount effort led by Jill Stein, who was the Green Party candidate.

Ms. Stein filed for a recount in Wisconsin on Friday afternoon, about an hour before the deadline.

“Now that a recount has been initiated in Wisconsin, we intend to participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides.”

Should Ms. Stein pursue additional recounts, “we will take the same approach in those states as well,” he wrote. But he noted that the “number of votes separating Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the closest of these states — Michigan — well exceeds the largest margin ever overcome in a recount.”

Mr. Trump issued a statement on Saturday calling the recount push “ridiculous” and “a scam by the Green Party.”

The Obama administration issued a statement to The New York Times on Friday in response to questions about intelligence findings related to Russian interference in the election. In the statement, it said it had concluded that the election had been free of interference.

The administration issued a second statement on Saturday saying that “the federal government did not observe any increased level of malicious cyberactivity aimed at disrupting our electoral process on Election Day.”

Now Mrs. Clinton finds herself in a difficult position of not wanting to lead the charge for a recount that Democrats believe will go nowhere, but also not wanting to abandon supporters who have donated to Ms. Stein’s last-ditch effort.

Mr. Elias’s post offered a revealing look at how much time and energy the campaign has spent in the past two weeks looking for evidence of Russian hacking or other irregularities, and how it has tried to keep those efforts secret.

“Since the day after the election, we have had lawyers and data scientists and analysts combing over the results to spot anomalies that would suggest a hacked result,” Mr. Elias wrote.

“Most of those discussions have remained private, while at least one has unfortunately been the subject of leaks,” he wrote, a reference to conversations between Mr. Podesta and a group of experts that included J. Alex Halderman, a computer scientist with deep experience in the vulnerabilities of voting systems.

Computer and Election Experts Urge Clinton to Challenge Election Results in 3 Swing States

Some may call it a case of grasping for straws, but a piece in New York Magazine reports that Hillary Clinton is being urged by a group of prominent computer scientists and election lawyers to call for a recount in three swing states: Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.  Their analysis notes questionable results in electronic votes that suggest manipulation and/or hacking.  Do I believe it?  I'm not sure, but given the existential danger that a Trump/Pence regime poses to the nation, I hope that Clinton will demand a recount.   Here are article highlights:  

Hillary Clinton is being urged by a group of prominent computer scientists and election lawyers to call for a recount in three swing states won by Donald Trump, New York has learned. The group, which includes voting-rights attorney John Bonifaz and J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, believes they’ve found persuasive evidence that results in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania may have been manipulated or hacked. The group is so far not speaking on the record about their findings and is focused on lobbying the Clinton team in private.

Last Thursday, the activists held a conference call with Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and campaign general counsel Marc Elias to make their case, according to a source briefed on the call. The academics presented findings showing that in Wisconsin, Clinton received 7 percent fewer votes in counties that relied on electronic-voting machines compared with counties that used optical scanners and paper ballots. Based on this statistical analysis, Clinton may have been denied as many as 30,000 votes; she lost Wisconsin by 27,000. While it’s important to note the group has not found proof of hacking or manipulation, they are arguing to the campaign that the suspicious pattern merits an independent review — especially in light of the fact that the Obama White House has accused the Russian government of hacking the Democratic National Committee.

According to current tallies, Trump has won 290 Electoral College votes to Clinton’s 232, with Michigan’s 16 votes not apportioned because the race there is still too close to call. It would take overturning the results in both Wisconsin (10 Electoral College votes) and Pennsylvania (20 votes), in addition to winning Michigan’s 16, for Clinton to win the Electoral College. There is also the complicating factor of “faithless electors,” or members of the Electoral College who do not vote according to the popular vote in their states. At least six electoral voters have said they would not vote for Trump, despite the fact that he won their states.

The Clinton camp is running out of time to challenge the election. According to one of the activists, the deadline in Wisconsin to file for a recount is Friday; in Pennsylvania, it’s Monday; and Michigan is next Wednesday. Whether Clinton will call for a recount remains unclear. The academics so far have only a circumstantial case that would require not just a recount but a forensic audit of voting machines. Also complicating matters, a senior Clinton adviser said, is that the White House, focused on a smooth transfer of power, does not want Clinton to challenge the election result.

Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri did not respond to a request for comment. But some Clinton allies are intent on pushing the issue. This afternoon, Huma Abedin’s sister Heba encouraged her Facebook followers to lobby the Justice Department to audit the 2016 vote. “Call the DOJ…and tell them you want the votes audited,” she wrote. “Even if it’s busy, keep calling.”

It would be nice to reverse the election results and perhaps save the nation from fascism.  It would also be nice to learn that a majority of voters in these three states had not voted for racism, hate and bigotry after all. 

Washington Post: Virginia Attorney General Race Should End with Recount

A number of posts on this blog have looked at the conjecture that failed GOP candidate Mark Obenshain might try to steal the Attorney General Race by throwing the contest into the GOP dominated Virginia General Assembly.  Even conservative Bearing Drift blog has opposed such a move as have numerous newspaper editorials around Virginia.  The Washington Post has joined this list as the first day of the recount saw Mark Herring's lead increase.  Here are editorial highlights:

A RECOUNT is under way to determine the winner of last month’s stupefyingly tight election for attorney general in Virginia. Whether the victor is state Sen. Mark R. Herring (D-Loudoun) or state Sen. Mark D. Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg), both men should declare now, before results are announced by week’s end, that they will respect the outcome.

That seems so modest a proposition that we are abashed at having to argue its merits. It amounts to embracing the idea that candidates must respect the will of the voters, a convention sanctified by U.S. history, tradition, consensus and law.

Mr. Obenshain trailed Mr. Herring by 165 votes (out of 2.2 million cast) when the State Board of Elections certified the results on Nov. 25; that margin widened Monday, the first day of the recount, to 185 after a fraction of the ballots were reviewed. The trouble is that Mr. Obenshain has maneuvered to leave himself wiggle room for a challenge even if the recount confirms that he has lost. That would be a gross error.

If the General Assembly were to overturn the result of the recount in the absence of egregious evidence of fraud or malfeasance, it would amount to the nullification of the democratic process. That would be so whether it was done by the Republicans, who now control the legislature, or the Democrats, who have controlled it in the recent past and may again in the future.

No evidence supports his insinuations. There is no sign that oddities cited by the Obenshain camp — some ballots submitted late to the clerk’s office; others cast by voters who went to the wrong polling station or showed up without identification — amount to anything approaching electoral fraud or wrongdoing. To all appearances, the Republicans have been picking at nits. That’s par for the course in any recount. What’s important, though, is that the recount, once finished, should be the final word.

The big problem today is that the GOP no longer believes in democracy.  Instead, its base of extremists, religious zealots and white supremacists want to impose their toxic beliefs and policies on all citizens.  It is a frightening development.  

Lynchburg News Advance: Obenshain Needs to Abide by Recount

There is growing opposition to the possible effort by failed GOP candidate Mark Obenshain to throw the decision in the Virginia Attorney General race into the Virginia General Assembly where Obenshain apparently believes that the GOP controlled legislature would give him the election regardless of the vote turn out.  Hence Obenshain's frantic efforts to fabricate "Problems" with ballots, especially in pro-Democrat Fairfax County.  The News Advance, the hometown paper of Lynchburg based Liberty University, has come out against Obenshain scheme.  Here are editorial highlights:

Despite the reticence of most of Virginia’s Republican legislators to talk about it and the best efforts of outgoing Gov. Bob McDonnell to shoot it down, the possibility of the GOP-dominated General Assembly stepping in to decide the winner of the closely contested attorney general race is not a dead issue.

If Herring’s win holds up, we hope Obenshain will respect the will of the voters. He could well pull off a “win” in the GOP-dominated Assembly, but he would be viewed by the public as a usurper who “stole the election” by partisan chicanery. That is the last thing we Virginians need.

But lawyers for Obenshain and some Republican apparatchiks have been making noises — very disturbing noises — calling into question the propriety of the vote count.

Indeed, when the state Board of Elections voted Nov. 25 to certify the results, Chairman Charles Judd, a Republican and former top-ranking official with the now-defunct Moral Majority, said he was voting to certify “with question” because he had concerns about “the integrity of data.”

Thus, in a few words, the GOP laid the foundation for Obenshain, should the recount uphold Herring’s razor-thin victory, to mount a contest of the results before a joint session of the General Assembly.

In the Herring/Obenshain race, there have been no credible charges. None whatsoever. Obenshain’s lawyers and party officials have focussed their attention on Fairfax County, where the outcome of the election was decided after days of counting absentee and provisional ballots. Some GOP stalwarts have tried to make the charge that the Fairfax vote counting process is tainted and that local officials disobeyed state directives about determining the eligibility of provisional ballots.

That, in a nutshell, seems to be the basis for this dangerous chatter of a legislative contest. It’s made all the more ironic and hypocritical by the fact that the Fairfax Electoral Board, like all electoral boards in Virginia, has a Republican majority and is led by Republican Brian W. Schoeneman.

[T]he voters and the candidates deserve the assurance that every possible eligible ballot is counted to guarantee the voters’ voices have been heard. And respected.

Today's GOP has open contempt for democracy - at least any form of democracy that doesn't disenfranchise minorities and give power to angry white male far right Christians.  It is frightening.  

Judge Who Thinks Being Gay Is a "Choice" to Help Preside Over AG Recount

As long time readers know, my divorce after coming out was a nightmare.  Frighteningly, one of the judge in my case - who opined that being gay is a "choice" - has been tapped by the Virginia Supreme Court to be part of the three judge panel that will oversee the recount in the Virginia Attorney General race recount.  I for one, will NOT be sleeping better at night while this recount remains unfinished knowing that this judge is involved.  The judge in question was first appointed by George Allen and has handed down some questionable rulings (see No.6) - see here as well - in the past.  Here are details from the Virginian Pilot on this, to me, troubling selection:

Circuit Judge Junius P. Fulton III was selected by the Virginia Supreme Court to oversee a fresh tally this month in a contest where Democrat Mark Herring leads Republican Mark Obenshain by 165 votes out of more than 2.2 million cast.

Serving with Fulton are Danville Circuit Court Chief Judge Joseph W. Milam Jr. and Richmond Circuit Judge Beverly W. Snukals, who will sit as chief judge for the recount.

All three were named in an order from Supreme Court Chief Justice Cynthia D. Kinser.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for today in Richmond ahead of a likely mid-December recount, according to the Obenshain campaign.

By law, a three-judge panel, including the Richmond Circuit Court chief judge and two others appointed by the Supreme Court, supervise a recount when candidates for state office are separated by no more than 1 percent of the votes cast for them.

So-called undervotes and overvotes - ballots where voters didn't select a candidate for each available office or selected more than one in a single contest - will be of particular interest to the candidates' attorneys.

Fulton is a former Norfolk School Board member who, like Kinser, was appointed to the bench by Gov. George Allen.

Justice Kinser - a former law school classmate - was also appointed by George Allen who was a darling of the far right.  When I argued before the Virginia Supreme Court on behalf of Michael Moore who was fired by the Virginia Museum of Natural History, Justice Kinser struck me as incensed that I  described what had happened to Michael Moore as religious based discrimination.  To be candid, I will not feel comfortable with Judge Fulton on the recount panel.

Will Obenshain Acting Honorably And Not Try to Steal AG Election

Like many others, I have followed the razor thin lead of Mark Herring in the Virginia attorney general race in which Herring was certified as the winner by the Virginia Board of elections yesterday.  Likewise, I have been concerned that the extremists in the Virginia GOP will push the contest loser, Mark Obenshain, to not only demand a recount but also to push the election results to the Virginia General Assembly where the GOP majority could reject the popular vote and declare Obenshain the winner.  In the Virginia GOP of old, such worries would be nonexistent.  But in today's Virginia GOP which is dominated by Christofascists and Tea Party lunatics and which has Ken Cuccinelli as the still incumbent attorney general to stack the dice so to speak, it is a legitimate worry.  A post at Blue Virginia suggests that Obenshain will do the honorable thing and concede the election.  I hope the post's author is correct. Here are post highlights:

The following piece has run in several Virginia newspapers, including today in the Lynchburg News & Advance.

Earlier this month, an alarm about Virginia's razor-close Attorney General's race sounded in some Democratic circles. Adam Swerver, in an article posted on the MSNBC website, declared that even if the defeat of Republican candidate Mark Obenshain is confirmed in a recount, he might still be able to have himself declared the winner by the Virginia state legislature, which is dominated by Republicans.  . . . . Opinions differed about the chances of Republicans succeeding with such a gambit, but there was little faith that scruples would hold them back from stealing the election. One response: "The va GOP will do ANYTHING to win cheat or steal an election."

I don't know whether state Senator Obenshain can gain the office through such a power-grab. But I bet he won't.

I live in Senator Obenshain's district. For more than twenty years, I have done talk radio in Harrisonburg, the town where Mr. Obenshain lives, discussing politics with the predominantly conservative audience in the Shenandoah Valley. I have only general impressions of him, but I know the political culture from which he comes.   

That political culture retains traditional conservative values and a sense of honor not yet transformed by the very different spirit that's come to dominate the Republican Party nationally.  I would bet that Obenshain - scion of a much-respected family of Virginia conservatives - would act in that true conservative spirit.   

A real conservative would not damage a pillar of the American political tradition by disrespecting the voice of the people expressed through voting.  It is at the heart of American democracy, because it is the means by which we confer power in an orderly and peaceful way.  

At the national level, the Republican Party has shown has shown itself increasingly contemptuous of the voters and of the sanctity of elections.  This is a party that

• Had its partisans on the Supreme Court decide the 2000 election to put their guy into the presidency, rather than make sure that the results in Florida honored the intent of the electorate;
• Has been erecting barriers to voting for constituencies that  support Democrats, ostensibly to solve a problem of voter fraud that every study shows to be virtually non-existent;
• Has used the filibuster in the U.S. Senate in an unprecedented way that subverts the basic principle of majority rule;
• Has made as its top priority preventing this president from leading the nation, even though he was fairly chosen by the people.

If the national Republican Party calls the shots in Virginia, such a disturbing scenario would indeed become plausible.  And we have seen how the spirit of power-at-any-cost has been spreading in the Republican Party from the national level down into the states. We've seen that Republican governors and legislatures -- in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, and Florida - have pursued parallel agendas, further empowering the already mighty at the expense of ordinary citizens.  

But I'm betting that, if the recount confirms his defeat, Obenshain will stay true to his more genuinely conservative roots, and will act the part of honor. 

Again, I hope the post's author is correct.  As for Obenshain, if he does act honorably, it may go some way to rehabilitate his image.    Of course, he will still need to stop trying to police people's bedrooms and women's vaginas if he wants to stage a come back in the new, demographically changed Virginia.

Attorney General Race Certification Today - GOP Likely to Demand Recount

Today is the day that the Virginia Board of Elections is scheduled to certify the results of the 2013 attorney general race results.  All indications are that Democrat Mark Herring will be certified as the winner and it is expected that extremist GOP candidate Mark Obenshain will demand a recount.  There is little precedent for recounts reversing an election outcome, but some fear a recount is the first step towards Obenshain seeking to throw the election into the General Assembly where the GOP members of the legislature could overthrow the popular vote.  The Richmond Times Dispatch has details:

The two candidates for attorney general are gearing up for a recount in the closest statewide contest in modern Virginia history, pending today’s meeting in which the State Board of Elections will certify the results.

State Sen. Mark R. Herring, the Democratic candidate, maintains a 165-vote lead over his Republican opponent, state Sen. Mark D. Obenshain — that’s about 0.007 percent of more than 2.2 million votes cast statewide — following extensive canvassing in several localities.

If a candidate is within one-half of a percentage point, the state will pay for a recount. If the margin is between one-half of a percentage point and 1 percentage point, a candidate can urge a recount at his own expense.

Charles E. Judd, chairman of the elections board, expects a recount. “We’re probably looking at the middle of December. It will be a long day for some localities,” Judd said Friday.

At 9 a.m. today, the board will review the election results provided by the local electoral boards.

Confident that he’ll maintain his lead, Herring declared victory two weeks ago. Obenshain, however, has repeatedly pointed out that the race is far from over and that the numbers could still turn in his favor during the state canvass or a recount. Both candidates have named transition teams.

Herring campaign lawyer Marc Elias, who worked on the Minnesota recount, told reporters in a call last week that he wouldn’t expect, based on history, a lot of movement in the vote totals during the state canvass that will be certified today.

“Obviously, Senator Obenshain will have a choice to make about whether to bring the people of Virginia through a recount,” Elias said. “Those of you who have seen past recounts in Virginia know they do not tend to change the results,” he said.

During a recount, all Scantron forms are run again and provisional and absentee ballots are recounted. Electronic receipts are re-tallied and re-added — all on one day. A law passed after the 2005 contest for attorney general requires that all paper ballots have to be rescanned or recounted. Deeds sponsored the bill.

If neither the state canvass nor a recount swings the vote count in his favor, Obenshain has one last chance to challenge the election. He could ask a joint session of the General Assembly — which is dominated by Republicans — to reverse the results through a rarely used provision in state law called a contest.

Under state law, grounds for a contest include objections to “the conduct or results of the election accompanied by specific allegations which, if proven true, would have a probable impact on the outcome of the election.”

Logan, Obenshain’s spokesman, did not comment when asked Friday if the Republican would consider contesting the election.

Mark Herring Attorney Confident of AG Race Recount Victory

Mark Herring at left; Obenshain at right

Unless the Virginia GOP steals the attorney general election by fabricating a reason to throw the election result to the GOP controlled House of Delegates (a possibility discussed in prior posts), the legal team for Democrat Mark Herring is confident that Herring will prevail in the election recount.  It is critical that Mark Obenshain - a minion of The Family Foundation and anti-abortion and anti-gay extremist - not gain the attorney general position from which he could work to sabatoge all of the efforts of Governor McAuliffe and Lt. Governor Ralph Northam.  The Daily Progress looks at the optimism of the Herring legal team.  Here are story excerpts:

An attorney for state Sen. Mark Herring said Monday he expects the Democrat to retain his slim lead over Republican state Sen. Mark Obenshain in the race for Virginia attorney general.

“I don’t expect a significant change,’’ Washington, D.C.-based attorney Marc Elias, a veteran of election recounts, said in a teleconference. “I expect the attorney general-elect [Herring] — whether there is a recount or not — will prevail.”

 

The final certification by the State Board of Elections is set for Nov. 25. As of Monday’s unofficial tally, Herring, of Loudoun County , has a 164-vote lead among more than 2.2 million votes cast.

Elias said just three recent statewide recounts “against the backdrop of hundreds and hundreds” have changed the result. He called the recent canvass of votes in Virginia cities and counties “painstaking.”

Elias comes as a seasoned attorney in election battles. According to the website for his law firm, Perkins Coie , he was the lead counsel for Democratic U.S. Sen. Al Franken in his successful 2008 Minnesota race and recount, which was decided in that state’s Supreme Court.

Obenshain , of Harrisonburg , has said he is committed to seeing the process through. He is expected to request a recount if he does not come out the winner.

Both candidates have put transition teams in place. Herring is preparing to take over as attorney general, said his campaign manager, Kevin O’Holleran .  “[Herring] has been focused on governing,’’ O’Holleran said.

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.