Virginia House Election: Republican David Yancey Wins Drawing

NEWPORT NEWS, VA — Republican incumbent David Yancey's name was drawn from a cobalt-blue-and-white ceramic bowl on Thursday morning to decide Virginia's 94th District seat in the House of Delegates.

Yancey had declined Simonds' offer on Wednesday that both sides accept the outcome and indicated he could call for a second recount or ask the House to pick a winner had he lost.

The drawing was just the latest dramatic twist in a November election that saw Democrats nearly wipe out a 66-34 advantage held by Republicans in the House. If Democrat Shelly Simonds had won, the partisan split would've been 50-50. But Yancey won, so Republicans will have a 51-49 majority.

But that's only if Simonds gives up. Partisans on both sides have different opinions of what state law allows in terms of another recount. After Yancey rejected her proposal to accept the drawing results as final, Simonds said she wouldn't rule out asking for one herself.

"I'm not prepared to give up," she said. "All options are on the table as far as I'm concerned."

The Newport News seat wasn't the only contested House race. Democrats have filed a legal challenge in a close Fredericksburg-area race in which several voters were given the wrong ballots. A hearing in that case is set for Friday.

Simonds appeared to have lost on Election Day by 10 votes, but on Dec. 19, she won a recount by a single vote. The next day, a three-judge panel in Newport News declared a tie based on a previously uncounted vote for Yancey. Simonds asked the judges to reconsider, but on Wednesday the panel denied her request in strident terms, saying "the right of a citizen to cast a free vote has been secured to us by the blood of patriots."

"The manifest injustice against which we must always guard is the chance that a single vote may not be counted," the judges wrote.

At the heart of the dispute in the race for a seat in the oldest legislative body in the country is a single ballot on which the voter filled in the bubble for both Simonds and Yancey. The voter also drew a single slash through the bubble for Simonds and picked Republican candidates in statewide races.

The ballot wasn't counted during the recount and was identified after a Republican election official raised concerns the following day.

By ALAN SUDERMAN, Associated Press

Photo credit: Ben Finley/Associated Press