A Darfur-supporting, time-tithing, self-deprecating newcomer becomes Virginia's big electoral surprise.
By Dahlia Lithwick

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.—It's been more than 72 hours since the polls opened on Tuesday, and Tom Perriello is only 19 minutes away from the official declaration that he has won—in one of the most dramatic upsets of the 2008 election—the congressional seat for the 5th District in Virginia. Perriello is sitting outside a coffee shop in Charlottesville, besieged by voters dying to know whether they've stopped the ballot-counting marathon yet. "Can I say congratulations yet?" asks a woman. "What's the final count?" A man says he is getting tired of hitting "refresh" on the Virginia State Board of Elections Web site. Perriello grins, explaining that after days of what he calls "cinematic" vote counting, the official count now gives him a 747-vote lead. This after the AP prematurely called the election for incumbent Virgil Goode on Tuesday night, then called it for Perriello on Wednesday. Vote totals seesawed back and forth as military ballots, paper ballots, and write-in ballots were counted and recounted.

Read the rest at Slate.

By David Swanson

As of about 9 p.m. ET on Thursday, 316,476 votes had been counted in Virginia's Fifth District congressional race between incumbent bigotted xenophobe Virgil Goode and challenger Tom Perriello, with 158,562 going to Perriello and 157,914 to Goode, for a difference of 648 votes or 0.2 percent of the total.

According to a report on Charlottesville's NBC-29:

"There is no 'automatic' or 'mandatory' recount. If the results differ by one percent or less, the losing candidate can formally request a recount in court. If the difference is less than half of a percentage point, the same candidate still has to make a request and the state will pay for it."

By David Swanson

In Virginia's undecided Fifth District congressional race, Tom Perriello is now up 814 votes with possibly more still to be added, and a recount likely. But most of the over 300,000 votes cast cannot be recounted, since they were made on electronic machines.

Good bye, Virgil Goode, You left us all worse off and more hateful. May you become a nicer person in a line of work where you don't think bigotry is your key to success.

Welcome to Congress, Tom Perriello. May you actually represent us and be patient with us as we experience the shock of it.

WINA reports:
"State law calls for a mandatory recount when the separation in the vote total is less than one-half of one percent."

But here's a citation of state law stating that a recount must be requested by apparently losing candidate.

Check the official results.

Be glad if you voted on paper because for most voters in Virginia's Fifth District there simply ain't nothing to recount.

AUDIO OF A PERRIELLO INTERVIEW TODAY.

And an encouraging statement from Perriello.

And a call for help:
"Remember the friends that I told you about who are working on a state campaign in Virginia? Well, it came down to within a few hundred votes and they need help getting the word out to election lawyers/political operatives who can help with a re-count. Would you mind forwarding this info to your list? The campaign is Tom Perriello's run for Representative in VA's 5th. David Madden is the contact person. His number is (202) 550-6461 and his e-mail is david_madden@post.harvard.edu "

And an analysis of Perriello's success, and a prediction the recount will take till Christmas, and something very strange: votes oddly eliminated and added:

VERIS is the new (and controversial) state voter registration database system. I just did an analysis of the changes due to the VERIS malfunction (?). In Danville, Tom Perriello’s vote totals (”original value”) were REDUCED by 308, while Virgil Goode’s vote totals were INCREASED by 1819. I do not understand why vote totals would have been affected by VERIS “going down after midnight,” as the VBE update page states. It seems the system is used to report vote totals. So precincts were able to report vote totals before midnight (presumably, these are the “original values”), but were prevented from finishing until this morning, when (it seems) the system was rebooted. Why, then, would vote totals have been decreased as well as increased? Also, the data from the missing precinct in Lunenberg were just added (9:58am): 351 Goode, 207 Perriello.

Possible explanation here.

And another mystery.

By David Swanson

Virginia's Fifth District Congressional race has become a battle over whether or not to count provisional ballots, with the Democratic candidate in favor and the Republican opposed, in general, to counting them. The Republicans can be expected to regurgitate myths promoted by the RNC, McCain campaign, and national corporate media about "voter fraud." Ideas matter, and if these insidious ideas are not rejected, decisive votes in this election might be.

By David Swanson

There is still hope that Virginia's Fifth District can be rid of Virgil Goode, but the final count has him in the lead. A recount is possible, and if there is any basis for it, I hope that Democratic candidate Tom Perriello will request it. Even if he loses a recount, Perriello would earn our respect as someone who stands up to see that every vote is counted, rather than someone who runs in fear of being called names like "sore loser."

The many complaints of polling place problems recorded yesterday by Election Protection in Virginia do not appear to be concentrated in the Fifth District. But there are serious complaints there, which if verified would throw the election in a very bad light. I've pasted some of the reports below.

"Tom Tom Tom!" chants by huge crowd at the Gravity Lounge in Charlottesville VA right across the street from Virgil Goode's office, where we have so often marched, protested, and sat-in, but never been represented. Perriello is talking "change" and "a new kind of politics," and the applause is ecstatic. People are commenting to each other about how long they've been losing. They're still scared to believe they've won something. Perriello is talking "unity." Huge applause. Very brief remarks. Now he's doing more interviews. I'm not sure he'll be a progressive leader. I am sure that the worst member of the United States Congress must now seek other employment.

By David Swanson

Watch this offensive clip from a recent Virgil Goode rally with remarks by Virginia State Delegate Don Merricks and Congressman Virgil Goode:



I grew up in Fairfax County, in Northern Virginia, and I've lived for several years in the Fifth District, currently misrepresented by Virgil Goode, who I would think would be the last person to want to bring up discussions of real and fake. His solution to disastrous economic policies is to support them and bash immigrants. That's a fake solution. His solution to the related disaster of foreign occupations is to support and fund them but bash Muslims. That's a fake solution. I didn't cease to be a fake person when I moved down here. I just acquired a fake representative in Congress who should be shown a real door on November 4th.