The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    Va. Attorney General race recount aborted--attempted theft by fraud exposed.

    By jollyroger on Fri, 12/20/2013 - 5:06pm |

    A strange thing just happened on the way to a (true blue) full Democratic sweep of Virginia .

     

    The Attorney General election ended with a razor thin victory by the Democrat, Mark Herring. (169 votes out of millions cast).

     

    This being well within the .5% margin entitling the loser to a recount, Mark Obenshain availed himself of the statutory remedy.

     

    Several days into the recount, he decided to concede, rather than let it run its course.

     

    Huh??!!

     

    The examination of ballots, rather than yielding the statistically likely spread of errors in which some votes first counted for Herring go to Obenshain, and some vice versa, was quintupling the original Herring margin.

     

    What can this mean?  Coupled with Obenshain's odd decision to abort the recount, which after all was costing him nothing, it can only mean that a balls-to-the-wall election fraud campaign had almost squeaked out an Obenshain victory, falling just short.

     

    Knowing that he was a guilty vote-stealing Repugnant, Obenshain cut the recount short via concession, because he knew that further ballot scrutiny risked exposure of the underlying conspiracy.

     

     

    Comments

    As a Virginian, I am just relieved!!!!  What I heard was that the votes that were counted first were disputed ones. I don't know what made them disputed -- was it a lack of ID?  We have to show them here, but it has been that way for so long most people know it already. Anyway, it was abundantly clear that Obenshain was not gaining ANY and Herring was gaining plenty.  

     

    You may be right, but frankly I think Obenshain just didn't want to lose by more than the official (original) count.  So as it is, and by the book, he lost by less than 200. Less embarrassing.  I may be wrong though -- if I'm right it's the first time I've seen a Republican capable of embarrassment. 


    by CVille Dem on Fri, 12/20/2013 - 5:35pm

    Your analysis has the virtue of conforming to Occam's razor (the simplest explanation prevails absent incompatible evidence) and was also mine at first.

     

    But the very close outcome and the dramatic shift makes me wonder...I'm pretty sure that there is a typical pattern in recounts, and having the new count come in skewed this much makes me wonder about what mibht be the mechanics of an initial count that could produce such a one-sided crop of errors...


    by jollyroger on Fri, 12/20/2013 - 5:42pm

    Other than it being legal, is there that big of a difference between the systemic voter ID challenges and voter fraud? Riffing off your idea, I think that rather than them not wanting illegal voter fraud to be covered by the news, they don't want the legal voter fraud posing as systemic voter ID challenges to be covered by the news.

    Thank you very much for bringing this to my attention.


    by Verified Atheist on Fri, 12/20/2013 - 5:53pm

    vote caging--the systematic challenging if legitimate voters,may be legal but it shouldn't be

     

    I'm not sure about what mechanism is being obscured (there's always the classic loss of cases full of ballots...) but the numbers as they unfold are beyond suspicious.


    by jollyroger on Fri, 12/20/2013 - 6:49pm

    I mentioned after I voted in the last presidential election that once I pushed the final button I never saw the red light showing that my vote had gone through. When I reported this to the "official" I was told that it "had to have been right,". I was glad that Obama won although I always wondered if it was without my help. 

    Next election I won't be heading off to work and I can stare anyone down for as long as it takes. ...it shouldn't be that way. 


    by CVille Dem on Sat, 12/21/2013 - 10:42pm

    Was it not Stalin who taught us "Who votes doesn't matter.  What matters is who counts the votes..."?


    by jollyroger on Sun, 12/22/2013 - 8:52pm

    Btw, just to be clear, I wasn't asserting that it was legal, merely assuming (pessimistically) that it is legal. I would gladly welcome a correction if it is not so.


    by Verified Atheist on Sun, 12/22/2013 - 12:35pm

    as far as I know it's legal.  also odious.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 12/22/2013 - 8:51pm