Virginia Attoney General race

[DINGO Joe]

Maddow does seem to be wrong when she says all provisional voters have to show up at courthouse to get vote counted, that only applies to those who did not have an id, which are just a fraction of the provisionals.

[DINGO Joe]

So, is herring leading without provisionnal ballots?

Most provisionals have been counted.  Probably 3/4 of provisionals left will be in Fairfax.  And overall we're probably talking about 300 votes.

[DINGO Joe]

It's a very similar issue in CO.  The GOP just appears way too far to the right and stuck in neutral and the republican party of the commonwealth is just way too conservative.

If Republican's would just drop the social issues, they'd get a lot more of the moderate votes in these states. Who really thinks that keeping a strict stance on abortion and gay marriage is worth losing these states? The economy is more important anyways.

The home of Jerry Falwell's Liberty U and Pat Robertson's 700 Club disagrees.

[DINGO Joe]

The recount starts Monday in Arlington, Fairfax, and Chesapeake, and everywhere else on Tuesday. Only optical scanner and handwritten ballots are actually recounted.  Touchscreen votes really can't be recounted, just recanvassed.  Out of the 2.2 million votes only about 700,000 will be recounted, according to VPAP.

[DINGO Joe]

The recount starts Monday in Arlington, Fairfax, and Chesapeake, and everywhere else on Tuesday. Only optical scanner and handwritten ballots are actually recounted.  Touchscreen votes really can't be recounted, just recanvassed.  Out of the 2.2 million votes only about 700,000 will be recounted, according to VPAP.

First day of recounts, only jurisdiction providing updates is Fairfax where Herring added 234 votes and Obenshain 95 with a little over 1/3 of the recount complete.  Pushes Herring's lead to 304 votes.

[DINGO Joe]

Mid-Morning update, with the recount still dominated by Fairfax, Herring now has a 455 votes lead. About 10 smaller counties with Touchscreen have reported no or minimal changes.  More importantly, in Chesterfield which Obenshain won by about 10,000 votes, Herring has picked up 14 more votes than Obenshain so far.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApI-UwWlYOlrdGw4VXJNX3VUYkE1TE81d0xDa3NRMEE&usp=sharing#gid=0

[DINGO Joe]

Herring's general counsel says the margin is now 607 with about 50% of the recount reporting.

[DINGO Joe]

Latest update from Herring puts the margin as high as 866.  There are just under 120 contested ballots and if all the challenges fail, it 866, if their all successful it's 811.

[DINGO Joe]

It's certified, Herring won by 907 votes.  Turns out not to be closest election in Virginia history as that remains the Deeds-McDonnell race for AG in 2005. 

[DINGO Joe]

No, the HoD and state Senate would've voted in a joint session, and the HoD outnumbers the Senate; Obenshain would've won. But the state's Republicans have decided to accept the voters' decision.

Mighty big of them.