[EL] ELB News and Commentary 11/11/11

[David Mason]

The history of recounts in Virginia, as opposed to some other states, has
been very orderly.  When they have occurred vote totals have tended not to
move much after the canvass.  George Allen made a similar decision 5 years
ago (not to request a recount, even though he was legally entitled to one).

Contra Rick, I am not sure there is more to the story: just a combination
of generally competent election administration and a political culture that
discourages bitter-end tactics.

Dave

On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 12:32 PM, Joseph Lorenzo Hall <joehall at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hoping other listers will correct me if I'm off...
>
> The Houck campaign in Virginia probably made the decision not to request a
> recount because of the interplay between Virginia election law and the
> extensive use of direct recording electronic (DRE) voting systems in
> Virginia. Most Virginia jurisdictions use DREs and Virginia law only allows
> the totals tapes to be "re-read" by election administrators, which means
> the results for DRE votes are unlikely to change much.
>
> That is, Virginia Code S. 24.2-802 (D)(2) (
> http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+24.2-802 ) says:
>
> "For direct recording electronic machines (DREs), the recount officials
> shall open the envelopes with the printouts and read the results from the
> printouts. If the printout is not clear, or on the request of the court,
> the recount officials shall rerun the printout from the machine or examine
> the counters as appropriate."
>
> So, if the campaign thinks they can't make up the difference through
> absentee/optical scan ballots (where humans interpret voter-made marks),
> then it might not make much sense to request a recount.  Virginia is not a
> "no-excuse" absentee voting state, so many would be using DREs in the
> counties for that district*.
>
> * Counties for the Houck district are: Culpeper County (All);
> Fredericksburg City (Part); Louisa County (All); Madison County (All);
> Orange County (All); Spotsylvania County (Part).  You can use the VVF
> Verifier to look at the variety of DREs used in those areas (only
> Fredericksburg City uses optical scanners as its standard polling place
> equipment:
> https://www.verifiedvoting.org/verifier/map.php?state=Virginia&county=Fredericksburg%20%28city%29&ec=allall&year=2008).
>
> best, Joe
>
> On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 11:51 AM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote
>>
>>
>>
>>  No Overtime in Va, as Democrat Concedes<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25295>
>> Posted on November 11, 2011 9:13 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=25295>
>> by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>>
>> *WaPo*<http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/democrat-edd-houck-concedes-virginia-senate-race-republicans-lock-up-hold-on-power/2011/11/10/gIQAzCOv9M_story.html>:
>> “Because the vote was so close, Houck could have requested a recount.
>> Friends and supporters had encouraged him to do so, but Houck said he did
>> not think he could overcome Reeves’s lead once it grew beyond 200.”
>>
>> There must be more to the story here, because 200 is a pretty small
>> margin.
>>
>
> --
> Joseph Lorenzo Hall
> Postdoctoral Research Fellow
> Media, Culture and Communication
> New York University
> https://josephhall.org/
>
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>
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