Weeks after election, Virginia House still in dispute

RICHMOND, Va. — A Democratic tidal wave on Election Day in Virginia three weeks ago has left chaos in its wake, with control of the House of Delegates still undecided and no end in sight to the dispute.

Lawsuits, threats and recriminations are flying as the state wrestles with the tricky question of what to do about the 147 voters in and around a crucial district who were given the wrong ballots.

Depending on what happens to that seat and two others, the 100-member House could fall into Democratic hands for the first time in nearly 20 years or find itself evenly divided and perhaps paralyzed.

It’s the Virginia version of the “hanging chad” debacle in Florida that threw the 2000 presidential election into confusion. As in that race, it could take several weeks and the intervention of the courts to determine the outcome.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Virginia Board of Elections Chairman James Alcorn.

The Republicans have gone from a commanding 66-34 majority in the House to an apparent 51-49 lead, with GOP candidates clinging to extraordinarily slim leads in three districts.

In one of the hard-fought House districts, the 28th, in the Fredericksburg area, Republican Bob Thomas leads Democrat Joshua Cole by 82 votes. But the state elections commission recently found 147 voters in the district and neighboring ones cast their ballots in the wrong district.

Virginia’s off-year elections were closely watched as a potential referendum on President Donald Trump and a preview of the midterm elections. The Democrats rode a wave of anti-trump voter sentiment to capture all three statewide offices and exceed all but the most optimistic predictions in the state House.