After a contentious city council primary, incumbent Chris Faraldi has won the Republican nomination for the Ward IV city council seat in Lynchburg.
The official canvass, which was completed Monday, expanded his lead from 21 votes on election night to 33 votes. Results posted on the State Board of Elections website show Faraldi received 1,042 votes, or 50.80%, and opponent Peter Alexander received 1,009 votes, or 49.20%.
That margin falls just outside of what the state allows for a recount.
“To once again be the Republican Nominee from Ward IV, it is a profound honor,” Faraldi said in a statement. “Come November, we will secure another four years on city council. The voters want and deserve a representative who delivers real results & conservative leadership in city hall. And that’s exactly who I am, will always be, and will continue to do.” He said the Lynchburg Electoral Board certified the results Monday afternoon.
The result comes after the ballot-counting process was temporarily placed on hold pending guidance from the State Board of Elections about an absentee ballot dropbox that was left accessible to the public and uncollected by the registrar’s office for two days after the June 18 primary election.
Virginia law dictates that ballots shouldn’t be accepted at dropboxes after 7 p.m. on the day of the election. Lynchburg General Registrar Daniel Pense said this particular dropbox was left in use due to a procedural error.
Ballots were collected from the dropbox at 12:50 p.m. on the day of the primary, Pense said in the statement. The dropbox was resealed and monitored by staff but remained available to the public until 12:15 p.m. Friday, when it was found to contain seven ballots. Election staff saw voters placing ballots in the box throughout the remainder of Election Day, Pense said, but did not see any ballots placed there any time after 7 p.m. that Tuesday.
While the Virginia election board’s security standards mandate that unstaffed dropboxes must be surveilled by video 24/7, Pense said the dropbox was monitored by his employees. Staff at the registrar’s office declined to confirm whether there was video surveillance of the dropbox as well.
Both candidates raised concerns over the dropbox on Friday and the counting process was “frozen in place,” according to an online statement Pense released Monday morning.
The tally resumed at 10 a.m. Monday.
Pense said in the statement that each of the envelopes holding those seven ballots properly confirmed the identity of each voter and their eligibility to vote absentee, but he did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication of this story. His online statement said he and the electoral board were investigating the matter.
The seven ballots collected Friday have been unsealed and mixed in with mail-ins and other absentee ballots, which Faraldi said makes it impossible to identify and separate those ballots. He compared it to sand art in a bottle: “Once you shake the bottle, you cannot undo it,” he said.
Alexander could not be reached for comment Monday night but he said in a statement last week that he hopes Faraldi will join him in demanding a full recount and audit of spoiled ballots, mail-in ballots, signature verification, voter eligibility, dropbox security and chain of custody.
“With a razor-thin margin, this election is headed straight for a fully observable recount that must be completed by hand,” Alexander said.
However, both the election night margin, and the margin Monday, fell just outside the margin that allows for a recount. Under Virginia law, a recount can only occur if there’s a difference of less than 1% between the two candidates’ vote totals. Virginia law also mandates that if there is a recount, optical scan ballots must be run through vote-counting machines.
Faraldi will face Democrat April Watson in November.
