Hampton Roads candidates watch close races as final ballots are counted
VIRGINIA BEACH — Election officials across the region are verifying votes to confirm Tuesday's election results, and in some cities, candidates in close races are watching in case outstanding ballots are enough to change the outcome.
The process of reviewing, confirming and recording the official local results of each election, known as a canvas, was underway Thursday in Building 19 at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center.
District 5 City Council candidate L.G. Shaw was among the observers in the room. Shaw faced veteran council member Rosemary Wilson, who is currently leading by 1,029 votes. Wilson had 52%, or 10,898 votes, as of Thursday, according to Department of Elections data, compared with Shaw's 9,869 votes, or about 47%.
"It's running its course, and we're patiently waiting," said Shaw. "We'll see where the chips fall."
Provisional ballots from across the city are still being counted, and the bulk of them — roughly 5,000 — are from people who registered to vote on Election Day, according to Virginia Beach Electoral Board Chair Jeff Marks. Verifying those ballots will extend into next week.
"It's a lot of work that's involved there," Marks said.
Votes will be certified by Nov. 15.
In some cities, such as Chesapeake and Portsmouth, outstanding ballots being tallied until next week could be enough to sway the outcome or allow candidates to formally request a recount. For recounts, total vote tallies between two candidates must fall within a 1% threshold.
In Portsmouth, where the three top vote-getters earn at-large seats on City Council, only 166 votes currently separate the candidates in third and fourth place. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 provisional ballots are being tallied, Portsmouth Electoral Board member Carol Summerlyn said Thursday. The vast majority of those were cast from same-day voter registration.
Some mail ballots are also outstanding. They must be received by noon Friday to be counted. Portsmouth Chief Deputy Registrar April Barnes said 4,853 ballots had been returned out of the 5,585 mail ballots requested.
Portsmouth's unofficial results show City Council candidates Yolanda C. "Edmonds" Thomas, Kathryn W. "Kitty" Bryant and Bill Dodson Jr. have the three-highest vote totals as of Thursday. Thomas has 15,484 votes, Bryant has 11,856, and Dodson has 11,527.
But City Council incumbent De'Andre Barnes may fall within the recount threshold. While Dodson had 11.8% of the vote, Barnes trailed with 11.6%, or 11,361 votes.
Reached by phone Thursday, Barnes said he hasn't made any requests for a recount at this time and is waiting to see how official results pan out.
"I'm just trying to just wait and let it play itself out and go from there," Barnes said.
As of Thursday, Chesapeake General Registrar Mary Lynn Pinkerman said the board was working to tally more than 3,000 provisional ballots. The board is also counting post-election absentee ballots. Pinkerman said of the 15,806 absentee ballots requested, 13,450 have been returned as of Thursday.
In Chesapeake, at least one candidate may fall within the threshold of calling for a recount . Preliminary results show City Council candidates Debbie Ritter, Les Smith Jr. and Patricia King are poised to secure the three at-large open seats. But candidate E.R. "Jeff" Jefferies Jr. trails King by 2,138 votes, according to the Virginia Department of Elections' unofficial results. King received 15.7% of all votes, while Jefferies received just shy of 15%.
Attempts to reach Jefferies for comment have been unsuccessful.
Across many other races in the region, unofficial election results showed clear winners, though in some cases it took longer than election officials would have liked.
In Virginia Beach, Marks said a recent change in how early voting numbers are processed kept election officials working late on election night as candidates and supporters waited with bated breath for the results to trickle in.
More than 121,000 people voted early in Virginia Beach, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. The figure includes people who mailed their ballots as well as those who voted in person at the registrar's office or one of the satellite locations leading up to Election Day.
Legislation passed in Virginia in 2022 requires election officials to sort those ballots by the precinct at which the voter who cast the ballot is assigned to.
"You have to dice it up among all the precincts," Marks said. "It takes a while to get these things processed."
While some localities may have stopped tabulating ballots at midnight and picked it back up in the morning, Marks chose to keep going.
"You lose a lot of efficiency to stop the process at that point," said Marks. "I felt like let's get this done tonight; it made more technical sense."
The city provided the early voting tally to state officials around 1 a.m., Marks said. The results were then posted on the Virginia Department of Elections' website.
Stacy Parker, 757-222-5125,
