Control of Virginia House of Delegates May Depend Upon Administrative Error in Having Voters Vote in Wrong Race

Oh boy if this pans out:

In Fredericksburg, Elias said those results appear to show about 668 votes at precincts that Virginia’s redistricting statutes say are in outgoing House Speaker Bill Howell’s 28th District that instead were cast in Republican Del. Mark Cole’s re-election victory in the 88th District.

Elias, as the lawyer for the House Democratic Caucus, asked the state board of elections in a letter to “take all steps necessary to resolve these discrepancies.”

Asked what those steps would be, Elias said Democrats are first waiting to confirm that some voters were given the wrong ballots at Fredericksburg precincts 201 and 402.

However, the letter to the board asks that the results in House District 28 not be certified as scheduled Monday among other changes. Following a strictly party-line basis, if the number of votes for Democrat Steve Aycock had instead been cast for Joshua Cole and the Republican votes for 88th District incumbent Mark Cole had instead been cast for Bob Thomas, Joshua Cole would be leading in the 28th District.

While Elias said Democrats learned of the potentially incorrect precinct splits only since Election Day, state board of elections records show the same precincts were also split between the 28th and 88th districts in each election since new maps were drawn in 2011.

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