Recount for 68th won't be separate

BY TYLER WHITLEY    Richmond TIMES-DISPATCH      Dec 9, 2005

A vote recount in the House of Delegates race between independent Katherine B. Waddell and Republican Del. Bradley P. Marrs will be held Dec. 20, the same day as the recount in the attorney general race.
 

Waddell and Marrs had sought an earlier date, separate from the other recount.

A three-judge panel in Richmond ruled yesterday that there would be fewer chances for error if the 68th House district and attorney general recounts were held on the same day.

Marrs, who sought the recount, also wanted to have the judges review all the optical-scan ballots cast in Chesterfield County. But the panel, headed by Richmond Circuit Judge Theodore J. Markow, saw no need for the more extensive recount, because Marrs had offered no evidence that there was a problem with the optical-scan voting.

The 68th House of Delegates district consists of portions of Chesterfield and Richmond. In an upset, Waddell won the race by 42 votes out of 26,886.

Chesterfield County uses optical-scan voting machines, while Richmond uses touch-screen machines. In Richmond, absentee ballots are fed through an optical-scan machine.

Because the optical-scan machines leave a paper trail, Marrs wanted the ballots that voters marked to be run back through the voting machines and recounted to see if the vote totals match. He argued that there were 383 "undervotes" in Chesterfield and the race was decided by only 42 votes. That means more people voted in the election than the number of votes recorded in the Marrs-Waddell race.

While the undervotes could be the normal -off from voting in the governor's race to voting in the House race, the votes might not have been properly tallied, Marrs said.

Margaret L. Sanner, a lawyer representing Waddell, said Marrs was merely speculating and had no evidence to arouse suspicions.

Markow agreed, saying a re-scan must be ordered only if there were questions about the validity of the original scan.

The attorney general race was decided by 323 votes out of more than 1.94 million cast, a narrower margin even than the Waddell-Marrs race.

Republican Del. Robert F. McDonnell of Virginia Beach was declared the winner over Democratic state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds of Bath County. Deeds asked for the recount.

The McDonnell-Deeds recount will be held simultaneously with the Marrs-Waddell race, with the counters in separate rooms in Richmond and Chesterfield courts. Meanwhile, election officials in circuit courts all over Virginia will be recounting the votes in the attorney general race.

The 68th House race is expected to be decided by noon Dec. 20, while the attorney general race might not be decided until Dec. 21. In the recounts, election officials will check the votes recorded on the machines against the election totals.

The recounts will get under way at 9 a.m.