2017 Virginia HoD Thread

[Keep cool-idge]

Simonds vote was crossed out on 2 corners.

Gillespie vote was crossed out on 3 corners.

No other box was filled for governor plus why would someone voted for LG and AG but not governor?
This is clearly a Gillespie/Vogel/Adams/Yancey ballot.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I think this was the wrong decision, but I can see arguments either way (even if I wouldn't be surprised if their was a political motivation here, in fairness, it's more likely than not that this was a Yancey vote even if it probably shouldn't have been counted given the uncertainty created by both candidates' names being bubbled in by whatever idiot cast this ballot).  It sucks, but it'd be hackish to pretend this was some sort of disenfranchisement of the district's voters.  The only sane way to deal with a tie is to do two more recounts and if it stays a tie then hold a second election, but the law gives the judges a good deal of leeway here.

[heatcharger]

Why didn't Perriello win the nomination? He would've lost this district by 10 points and spared us these theatrics

[GeorgiaModerate]

I think this was the wrong decision, but I can see arguments either way (even if I wouldn't be surprised if their was a political motivation here, in fairness, it's more likely than not that this was a Yancey vote even if it probably shouldn't have been counted given the uncertainty created by both candidates' names being bubbled in by whatever idiot cast this ballot).  It sucks, but it'd be hackish to pretend this was some sort of disenfranchisement of the district's voters.  The only sane way to deal with a tie is to do two more recounts and if it stays a tie then hold a second election, but the law gives the judges a good deal of leeway here.

I think a redo is a better option than drawing lots in any case.

[Virginiá]

Not commenting on the validity of the ballot, but:

Different then the VA issue.
That person wrote in lizard people for president and senate so I’m going to guess that person is a troll.
This Virginia ballot is a typo why would someone vote for Gillespie Vogel and Adams then vote dem for the HOD? They saw they filled in the wrong box and fixed it.

Huh? You honestly think people never split their ballots at the state level? There are endless examples of Governors winning by big margins that, by your logic, should completely sweep the entire legislature because the Governor won by like 60 - 70%. People split their ballots all the time. Not all Democrats or Republicans vote straight ticket, and in some cases there are substantial cross over votes. Wyoming or Hawaii 2006 are good examples, but there are many, many more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_gubernatorial_election,_2006
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_gubernatorial_election,_2006

If those Freudenthal voters voted straight Democrat as you are implying they should (as it makes no sense not to?), the entire legislature would have flipped with that margin.

No other box was filled for governor plus why would someone voted for LG and AG but not governor?
This is clearly a Gillespie/Vogel/Adams/Yancey ballot.

Again, not liking the choices for Governor is not an odd thing. I'm sure it happens in just about every gubernatorial election there is. It happens bigly in some presidential elections too, where people basically vote for everything but POTUS. 2016 is a good example.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I think this was the wrong decision, but I can see arguments either way (even if I wouldn't be surprised if their was a political motivation here, in fairness, it's more likely than not that this was a Yancey vote even if it probably shouldn't have been counted given the uncertainty created by both candidates' names being bubbled in by whatever idiot cast this ballot).  It sucks, but it'd be hackish to pretend this was some sort of disenfranchisement of the district's voters.  The only sane way to deal with a tie is to do two more recounts and if it stays a tie then hold a second election, but the law gives the judges a good deal of leeway here.

I think a redo is a better option than drawing lots in any case.

Drawing lots is idiotic, but the law is what it is.  Then again, I prayed to God for a Doug Jones victory the day before the AL special and for a Northam victory the day before that election, so maybe it'll work this time too  Anyway, there should obviously be a redo here and in the district where the number of voters given the wrong ballots exceeded the margin of victory, but of course, that makes far too much sense.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Not commenting on the validity of the ballot, but:

Different then the VA issue.
That person wrote in lizard people for president and senate so I’m going to guess that person is a troll.
This Virginia ballot is a typo why would someone vote for Gillespie Vogel and Adams then vote dem for the HOD? They saw they filled in the wrong box and fixed it.

Huh? You honestly think people never split their ballots at the state level? There are endless examples of Governors winning by big margins that, by your logic, should completely sweep the entire legislature because the Governor won by like 60 - 70%. People split their ballots all the time. Not all Democrats or Republicans vote straight ticket, and in some cases there are substantial cross over votes. Wyoming or Hawaii 2006 are good examples, but there are many, many more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_gubernatorial_election,_2006
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_gubernatorial_election,_2006

If those Freudenthal voters voted straight Democrat as you are implying they should (as it makes no sense not to?), the entire legislature would have flipped with that margin.

No other box was filled for governor plus why would someone voted for LG and AG but not governor?
This is clearly a Gillespie/Vogel/Adams/Yancey ballot.

Again, not liking the choices for Governor is not an odd thing. I'm sure it happens in just about every gubernatorial election there is. It happens bigly in some presidential elections too, where people basically vote for everything but POTUS. 2016 is a good example.

I have in the not-too-distant past voted a ballot that included at least one Republican, one Democrat, one Libertarian, and one Independent.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Not commenting on the validity of the ballot, but:

Different then the VA issue.
That person wrote in lizard people for president and senate so I’m going to guess that person is a troll.
This Virginia ballot is a typo why would someone vote for Gillespie Vogel and Adams then vote dem for the HOD? They saw they filled in the wrong box and fixed it.

Huh? You honestly think people never split their ballots at the state level? There are endless examples of Governors winning by big margins that, by your logic, should completely sweep the entire legislature because the Governor won by like 60 - 70%. People split their ballots all the time. Not all Democrats or Republicans vote straight ticket, and in some cases there are substantial cross over votes. Wyoming or Hawaii 2006 are good examples, but there are many, many more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_gubernatorial_election,_2006
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_gubernatorial_election,_2006

If those Freudenthal voters voted straight Democrat as you are implying they should (as it makes no sense not to?), the entire legislature would have flipped with that margin.

No other box was filled for governor plus why would someone voted for LG and AG but not governor?
This is clearly a Gillespie/Vogel/Adams/Yancey ballot.

Again, not liking the choices for Governor is not an odd thing. I'm sure it happens in just about every gubernatorial election there is. It happens bigly in some presidential elections too, where people basically vote for everything but POTUS. 2016 is a good example.

I have in the not-too-distant past voted a ballot that included at least one Republican, one Democrat, one Libertarian, and one Independent.

I voted for a bunch of Democrats, a write-in, and several Republicans in 2016.  I voted mostly Democratic in 2017, but I voted for one Republican this year too.

[Adam Griffin]

Yeah, going by Greedo's intent, voting for any candidates at all should be abolished and voters should just be presented with Straight Ticket D & R options (FWIW, I'm not entirely against this idea in practice, but alas - this isn't the law).

Discerning intent based on other ballot selections is only statistically likely to produce the correct outcome, but when anywhere from 5-50% of an electorate's intent could be nullified that way, suddenly it doesn't seem like such a smart decision.

[user12345]

Definitely a tie. The judges called this properly. Hopefully the coin toss can happen without any more hackery from either side.

[Anna Komnene]

Deciphering the intent on that ballot is beyond absurd. I could come up with several justifications with varying degrees of plausibility for either side. It's impossible to be certain they wanted to vote for one candidate or the other.

[Virginiá]

Deciphering the intent on that ballot is beyond absurd. I could come up with several justifications with varying degrees of plausibility for either side. It's impossible to be certain they wanted to vote for one candidate or the other.

I would be confident in the judge's decision if the Gillespie bubble didn't also have a strike through it. That makes it impossible to truly know. If it had no issues, we could safely assume they just accidentally voted for Simonds and crossed it out, since everything else was Republican. But since they crossed out Gillespie (a Republican), it makes it ambiguous.

Also, I can't help but note that a bunch of Republican judges who are elected by the General Assembly may have a bit of a bias towards being generous in their interpretation of Republican ballots in such a close election with such huge ramifications. This is why I hate any system where a judge is basically "elected," whether by the people or the GA. It creates an incentive to cast favorable rulings knowing that those people (the voters or lawmakers) will remember whose side they chose.

[The Other Castro]

Two things can be true IMO:
1. It is likely this voter intended a vote for Yancey
2. The vote is still invalid, and it does not meet the qualifications needed to count as a vote

[Anna Komnene]

^

Yeah, it's possible the voter could have struck through both Gillespie and Simonds in an attempt to show their intent. The fact that they voted for all Republicans doesn't necessarily mean they meant to vote for Yancey. It could have been a case where they were filling in all of the GOP bubbles and then remembered at the last minute that they meant to vote for Simonds in the local race. Not really any less plausible than the suggestion that they meant to vote for Yancey. Anyone who says they can be 100% confident enough in the voter's intentions in order to say one way or the other is just engaging in partisan hackery.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Two things can be true IMO:
1. It is likely this voter intended a vote for Yancey
2. The vote is still invalid, and it does not meet the qualifications needed to count as a vote

I believe both of them are true.

[fluffypanther19]

The hackery in this thread is getting intense. All of you would be celebrating (or mourning in Greedo's case) if the exact same scenario happened in reverse and you know it, so stop whining.

seriously, so much whining and hackery here. I’m not sure if I heard correctly, but isn’t there a ballot that had both bubbles filled but they thought that the bubble for simmonds was darker so they counted it as a simmonds vote? This is a really close election and were basically picking hairs here.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

This vote in question was clearly an overvote.

I believe that this vote should have been counted for Simonds, if anything, since there was more markings in her box, combined with the fact that Gillespie had additional box markings as well.

More likely an annotation, than a cross out.

[henster]

Tell me why this shouldn't be thrown out?

[Virginiá]

Either way, even if Republicans do hold this seat in the end, it isn't the biggest loss. They will still control the state Senate regardless, and 50-50 gives more power to Democrats but not total power. I'm not entirely sure if there would be a big policy difference with a 50R-50D vs 51R-49D HoD.

Virginia Republicans are still favored to lose the legislature in 2019 (imo), so eventually the dam is going to break and Virginia's policy direction will veer towards the left.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

it is extremely hypocritical of Republicans to call this vote invalid, while calling this vote for them:

[IceSpear]

You're comparing apples and oranges. We don't know what judgment the Virginia counters would've made on that Minnesota ballot from nearly a decade ago.

[Bidenworth2020]

the race is now a tie, nother vote for da pub. decided by coin flip.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

it is extremely hypocritical of Republicans to call this vote invalid, while calling this vote for them:

Everyone is hypocritical Solid, which is why election judges are typically made up of bipartisan panels. The biggest error here was county government selecting an all-republican panel.

[Gass3268]

Either way, even if Republicans do hold this seat in the end, it isn't the biggest loss. They will still control the state Senate regardless, and 50-50 gives more power to Democrats but not total power. I'm not entirely sure if there would be a big policy difference with a 50R-50D vs 51R-49D HoD.

Virginia Republicans are still favored to lose the legislature in 2019 (imo), so eventually the dam is going to break and Virginia's policy direction will veer towards the left.

Yeah, I'm wondering if Trump + Republican State Legislature would be a better sell in 2019 to drive out turnout.

[Anna Komnene]

IMO anyone who would decide to vote Dem based on the GOP having a majority would be equally as likely to do it with a 50/50 split. It's more important to have as many incumbents as possible. Incumbent Yancey would be much harder to beat in 2019 than a gop challenger (or even Challenger Yancey). Beyond that, dems should want as many votes as they can get. Even if they can't accomplish major objectives, they'll still be more likely to pick off a Republican here and there for smaller legislation. Being able to go back to your constituents that voted for you and show them that you're doing things for them is really important.