The battle for control over Virginia's 94th District will finally come to a close on Wednesday, when a random chance tiebreaker will decide which candidate wins the House of Delegates seat.
The election has proven a roller coaster of emotions, with each new development seemingly putting the other party ahead. Now, after an 11th hour court ruling, the race for Virginia's 94th District seat -- representing Newport News -- is officially tied, with Republican David Yancey and Democrat Shelly Simonds each receiving exactly 11,608 votes in this year's election. The fate of the Virginia General Assembly is now up for grabs. If Yancey wins, then Republicans will retain a slim majority in both chambers of the state legislature. But if Simonds is able to steal the seat, it will create an even 50-50 split in the lower chamber, eliminating the Republican House of Delegates majority for the first time in 17 years. And all of this is about to be decided completely by chance. Very seldom are there ties in politics. The odds of two candidates receiving the same number of votes are astronomically slim. Most jurisdictions don't really have a plan to deal with ties. A lot of districts around the country use coin-flips or pulling a card out of a deck to break a tie. In Virginia's 94th District however, a tie is broken "by lot" (essentially, by pulling a name out of a hat).
Each candidate's name will be written on a piece of paper and placed into a film canister. The fact that the rules call for the use of "film canisters" proves how old this rule is.
The names are placed in empty film canisters to give each a uniform size and then put into a bowl. A member of the State Board of Elections will then reach into the bowl, grab a canister, and whoever's name is in it becomes the next member of Virginia's House of Delegates.
It is only fitting that the craziest race would be given the craziest ending.
On election day, it was clear that the race in the 94th District would be exceptionally close. Simonds was 12 votes behind after the initial count, and she immediately demanded a recount. The State and Local Boards of Elections got involved and began counting each ballot by hand, which eventually reduced the margin to 10 votes.
The official recount ended up giving Simonds a net-gain of 11 votes, meaning that she had won the seat by just a single vote. Immediately, websites across the internet used the strange recount result to remind readers of how every vote counts. Apparently, the Yancey campaign felt the same way and immediately challenged the recount.
You see, Yancey's team had found one ballot marked for their candidate that had been disallowed and discarded during the recount. Election judges argued that one ballot should be invalidated because the voter seemingly voted for both candidates. During the review in court, the ballot was displayed showing that the unnamed voter had voted party-line for Republican candidates, then filled in the bubble for Republican Candidate David Yancey and Democrat Shelly Simonds. However, the Simonds bubble had a line slashed through it.
The case was made even more complicated by the fact that the voter voted for Ed Gillespie by putting an X through the ballot bubble. Democrat lawyers argued before the court that since the voter used an X to vote for one candidate, then the line through Simmonds' bubble should count as well. Republican lawyers argued that it was clear that the line was added as a way to undo a mistake and that the fact that the ballot voted for the rest of the Republican ticket should give the vote back to Yancey.
The three-judge panel ultimately agreed with Yancey's lawyers' argument and restored the vote to the tally. With that, the election in the 94th District was officially all tied up.
“The court declares there is no winner in this election,” Circuit Court Judge Bryant Sugg said after the panel's deliberations.
This election obviously carries immense importance in Virginia state politics. Obviously, if Simmonds' name is chosen from the bowl on Wednesday, the House of Delegates will have a 50-50 tie between both parties.
As interesting as this single seat is, it is important to remember that this likely won't impact what legislation comes out of Richmond next year. Since Virginia's next governor will be a Democrat, Republicans will not have enough votes in either chamber to override any of Ralph Northam's vetoes. That means that whether Republicans control 51 or 50 votes in the House of Delegates after Wednesday, Republicans and Democrats will still need to work together, across the aisle, if they want to pass anything.
