Lawsuit fails to delay Stafford election certification, provisional ballots tallied by Electoral Boa
It's been a busy day for those monitoring the election process today. Developments today include:
- Lawyers representing the Democratic party brought suit against the Electoral Board this morning to extend the certification of the election due to the disenfranchisement of voters in the HD 28 race. The judge dismissed the case , for an excellent legal explanation as to why and to see a copy of the complaint filed, visit TheBullElephant.com. The lawyers for the Democrats said they would be back to file again with different voters. It remains to be seen if they can do so before the certification deadline at 5PM tonight.
- Since the judge dismissed the case and there was no delay, the Electoral Board immediately went into a meeting to determine the status of the late arriving absentee ballots and the provisional ballots. Thanks to Dana Brown for attending both the court case and the Electoral Board meeting and supplying BTW with the results of both. Here's what happened at the meeting:
1) The Chairman of the Electoral Board, Doug Filler (D) motioned the EB to count the 55 late (not specifically military) absentee votes. The vote failed, with Vice Chair Marie Gozzi (D) and Secretary Gloria Chitum (R) voting not to count the late ballots.
2) The provisional ballots were counted and verified. Of the 50 votes, 9 were thrown out, 40 were counted, 1 envelope was empty due to that voter casting their ballot in the polling place on election day. In the Garrisonville Supervisor race, Laura Sellers (D) picked up 6 votes, Mark Dudenhefer (R) picked up 3. In the House District 28 race, Joshua Cole (D) picked up 11 while Bob Thomas (R) picked up 9.
According to these unofficial results, Ms. Sellers still fails to overtake her challenger, leaving her 12 votes short of a tie. In the 28th, Cole still trails Thomas by 82 votes. Remember, there will be recounts in both races BUT, unless there is another lawsuit today filed by 5PM to stop the local certification of the results, both Thomas and Dudenhefer will be declared winners in both races. At that point, Cole and Sellers can appeal for recounts in their races.