The official canvass of the 5th District Republican primary shows that John McGuire has defeated Rep. Bob Good by 375 votes (up two from Monday night after Nottoway County reported). Good says he wants a recount. Here are some frequently asked questions about recounts in Virginia.
Why are the numbers being reported now different from what were reported on election night?
The election night numbers are unofficial. They also don’t include any mail ballots that arrive after Election Day; Virginia law allows for those to be counted as long as they’re postmarked in time on Election Day and arrive before noon on the Friday following the election. They also don’t include provisional ballots — cases where people may not have had proper ID or some other dispute about their registration. After the mail ballots are in, each locality conducts an official canvass of the results, and that’s what’s being reported now.
Who runs Virginia elections?
Virginia elections are run by the State Board of Elections and the electoral boards in each locality.
Who controls those boards?
At the moment, Republicans. By law, each electoral board has two members from the governor’s party and one from the party that came in second. Since we have a Republican governor, that means each electoral board has two Republicans and one Democrat.
Does Virginia law allow for recounts?
Yes, but there’s no such thing as an “automatic recount.” The losing candidate must request one. There are instances where candidates finish close enough for a recount but don’t ask for one. For instance, in this year’s Republican primary for Vinton District supervisor in Roanoke County, Tim Greenway finished close enough to request a recount but went ahead and conceded to Tammy Shepherd.
How close does an election have to be before it qualifies for a recount?
State law allows for a recount if the final results are within 1% or less. However — and this is a big however — if the final results are within 0.5% or less, the local electoral boards pay for the recount. If the final results are more than 0.5% apart, but less than 1%, the candidate requesting a recount must pay.
In the case of last week’s primaries, the difference between the two 5th District Republican candidates is currently 0.6% — with John McGuire at 50.3% and Bob Good at 49.7% — so that means Good is entitled to a recount, but his campaign must pay for it.
In the case of the Republican primary in Lynchburg for the Ward IV council seat, the official canvass puts Faraldi up by 1.32% — Faraldi 50.66%, Peter Alexander 49.34% — so no recount is allowed there.
How much does a recount cost?
It varies. “It is all dependent on how many recount teams the court allows each locality,” said Petersburg registrar Dawn Wilmoth. Her locality was involved in a recount last year in a House of Delegates race, and ultimately had two-person teams for each in-person precinct and two two-person teams to handle the absentee ballots (which include the early voting). That added up to 18 people, plus two alternates — at a cost of $3,600 to recount 7,601 votes. In last year’s clerk of court race in Henrico County, Henrico budgeted about $100,000 to recount 106,522 ballots in 91 precincts.
The 5th District race involves 24 localities, 303 precincts and more than 62,000 votes.
Has a campaign ever wound up paying for a recount?
No one we’ve contacted can remember any. All the recounts within memory were close enough that the electoral boards paid for them.
Has a recount ever changed the outcome of an election?
Yes, but it’s highly unusual, particularly in the era of optical scan ballots. In the Henrico clerk’s race last year, the recount changed five votes, not enough to change the outcome. In the recount last year in the House of Delegates race in the Petersburg area, the final margin changed by 25 votes — again, not enough to change the outcome. Virginia had statewide recounts in the 1989 governor’s race, the 2005 attorney general’s race and the 2013 attorney general’s race and none of those changed the outcome, even though each involved close to 2 million votes being recounted.
How do recounts work?
First, the losing candidate must wait until the State Board of Elections certifies the results. (The state board certifies results for congressional races; local boards certify the results for local races). For last week’s primary, that state certification will be July 2. The losing candidate then has 10 days to ask for a recount. That’s done by filing a request in the court of the candidate’s home county. The chief judge of the circuit court for that county presides over the recount, along with two judges appointed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia.
Will there be a hand-count of ballots?
No. Good says he wants one, but state law mandates that optical-scan ballots be run through the vote-counting machines again. If there are disputed ballots, the three recount judges rule on those. State law says: “There shall be only one recount of the vote in each precinct.” There is no provision for a hand-count of optical-scan ballots.
Can the recount results be appealed?
State law says “the recount proceeding shall be final and not subject to appeal.”
