Lawyers for the losing Republican candidate in a tight race for Virginia attorney general filed a petition in Richmond Circuit Court on Wednesday for a recount of the votes. In results certified on Monday by the Virginia State Board of Elections, out of 2.2 million votes cast in the November 5 election, only 165 separated Republican Mark Obenshain from Democrat Mark Herring, who has declared victory. Overseeing the recount will be a three-judge panel consisting of the chief judge of the Richmond Circuit Court and two other judges named by the chief judge of the Virginia Supreme Court. … Obenshain’s team seems to be particularly interested in examining what are called “under votes,” in which a person votes for a lesser number of candidates than he is entitled to vote for on the ballot.
Obershain’s lawyer agreed with an estimate cited by the Republican’s campaign that as many as 25,000 to 50,000 under votes have yet to be counted.
Optical scan tabulators typically reject such ballots.
Under state law, these votes – and others including write-ins and over votes, which are ballots in which voters marked more than the maximum number of selections allowed – had to be set aside and counted by hand in the localities.
Full Article: Republican seeks recount in close Virginia attorney general race | Reuters.