I smell a rat. Dirty thieving GOPers’s history of rigging elections sets off my alarm bells. I’m sure this will be a ‘heads he wins, tails she loses” deal.
Election officials hard at work I see.
The job will be completed when we conclude that the house majority will be republican.
Even if we have to play bingo to get there.
Here is an election law that needs to be changed. If there really is a tie - have a re-vote. Let the voters say (again) rather than a random chance - that will leave the public that was for the other candidate - which ever candidate wins - feel it was somehow rigged.
“They also denied a request by Simonds’ attorneys to review a ballot from another precinct.”
On what grounds?!?
So does anyone have the text of these guidelines? Because this is just weird. You can make pretty much any argument you want about the voter’s intent from those marks.
Timing. The judges said the ballot and request for review were not submitted in time.
GOP response: but elections cost too much money!!!
Well, that’s definitely more important than the will of the voters!
(and they continue) : … which is needed for gigantic tax cuts for the wealthy!
Oops - Northam won - strike that last statement.
I’m sure that the Virginia Republican officials, who will conduct this “random” selection, can be trusted 100% to ensure that the selection is truly random. Oops, sorry I didn’t mean to barf all over this…
Random Jones, a trusted Republican citizen, will make the pick.
In Louisville, we have those same fill-in-the-oval ballots. Plenty of pencils are provided at each polling station, and you know what those pencils come equipped with? Erasers. No one knows that voters intent. The Yancey attorney argued that since the voter had voted for Republicans elsewhere on the ballot then they must’ve intended to vote Republican in that race. Maybe. Or, maybe the voter intended to vote a straight Republican ticket except for Simonds. Who the hell knows except that anonymous voter? Which is why that ballot should clearly be discarded. I sincerely hope they’re able to appeal this stupid decision.
From now on, let’s see the names of judges and who appointed them. This kind of thing will become completely widespread as the judicial branch is taken back to the stone age.
Every time I have voted in Virginia we used a black ink pen but I am sure you could easily request another ballot
It’s called gerrymandering.
Ezra Reese, an attorney for Simonds, argued that under the guidelines, the ballot should remain uncounted because it contained more than one type of extra marking.
He’s right, you know. And if the tables were turned I’ll bet it would remain uncounted.
Fun Fact: Democratic candidates across the state received a whopping 200,000 more votes than Rethugliklans in this last election. But thanks to the miracle of gerrymandering … this happens in state after state after state.
So now this election will be decided by the equivalent of a coin toss or “rock, paper, scissors.” If it were the latter, I hope Simonds would know the secret of simply holding up one finger; dynamite beats everything.
The law matters until it works against us is the GOP montra. Seems like it should have been kept out, but I wounder how many others should have been kept or excluded if we go by this same sort of logic.
On the ballot in question, the voter had picked Republican candidates in statewide races. For the 94th District, the voter filled in the bubble for Yancey and the bubble for Simonds. But he or she also drew a single slash through the bubble for Simonds.
If I had to judge the voter’s intent I would give the vote to the Republican. I think it’s a pretty easy call.
But that’s besides the point. The real question is does this ballot pass a clear standard in the recount instructions? If the recount instructions disallow counting such ballots it should be rejected. If the recount instructions are unclear and the judge rules in favor of the ballot then everyone should get a chance to look at all the ballots again in light of the clarified standard.
See @ottnott’s post in yesterday’s thread
Basically, the ballot is spoiled under Virginia’s rules.
See @ottnott’s post above. Virginia requires clear voter intent in hand-counted ballots, to the point that if a voter marks with X’s for all races but one, and uses a checkmark in the one race the checkmark is not counted.
I think the voter’s intent was to vote for the Republican, however, “I think” isn’t the standard. The standard is “clear intent”: this is an overvote and therefore is uncountable.
Really? We just use a paper ballot and a good ole #2 pencil with an eraser. It honestly seems like most efficient way to vote while also leaving a paper trail that can be examined at anytime.
it is a paper ballot, but we use a black pen