ELECTIONS are exciting times, especially in newsrooms. I don’t think anyone outside the campaigns gets as much of a charge out of the casting and counting of votes as the journalists who cover it all. It’s an exercise in republican democracy, an expression of the popular will and thought. It’s about hope and fear and all those star-spangled things candidates go on about in stump speeches.
But at their core, elections are about power — who has it, who’ll get it and how that will be decided. The day before and the day after an election, the issue is what will the winners do with their power. But the day itself is about who will get that power.
This past election was particularly significant. With the nation simultaneously in a recession and two wars, with climate change threatening to reshape the very planet we live on, all sorts of potential economic, diplomatic, environmental and military threats presenting themselves around the world, this was a crucial vote.
On one side — the winning side, as it turned out — was the first African American presidential candidate put forth by a major American political party. On the other side was the second woman to be a major party’s candidate for vice president.
Another election with an epicenter much closer to Grounds was held last week, too. Unlike the presidential election, in which the winner became clear before midnight on the day ballots were cast, this one may not be truly decided before December. And that election has a lot to say about our electoral system, our political system, the power of what political operatives call their ground game, the potential impact of a single vote and the evolution of politics in the commonwealth.
Tom Perriello seems to have taken Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District seat away from Virgil Goode. Goode has held the seat — as a Democrat and a Republican — for more than a decade. The last count I saw (as I wrote this last weekend) had Perriello ahead by 745 votes. How did he do that?
“I think the college vote made a difference, maybe the difference,” State Sen. Creigh Deeds told The Cavalier Daily.
The Cavalier Daily had pretty good coverage the day after the election, but it seemed to weaken as the week went on until, by Friday, there was nothing at all. I hope that by the time this column is published some of the coverage’s shortcomings will have been redressed. But they’re worth taking note of here in any case.
Deeds was a good person to ask about such a close race. But The Cavalier Daily, which described Deeds as someone who plans to run for governor, didn’t explain why Deeds might be an expert — or at least someone with a special insight. He lost the attorney general’s race by fewer than 400 votes in 2005.
Last Thursday, The Cavalier Daily paraphrased University Democrats president Sarah Buckley saying that provisional ballots have gone mostly to Democratic candidates because they are cast mostly by students and minorities. My sense is Buckley is probably right about that, but a good follow-up question would have been why students and minorities are so often forced to cast provisional ballots.
In the same article, College Republicans president Savanna Rutherford is paraphrased as saying that Goode will win after a recount. A good follow-up there would have been, “What makes you think so?” Historically, recounts change vote totals very little. Neither of Virginia’s most recent statewide recounts have changed the winner.
The lack of a story on Friday meant The Cavalier Daily didn’t tell readers that hundreds of paper ballots had been found, uncounted, in two Charlottesville precincts. Most of those went for Perriello. The Cavalier Daily didn’t tell readers about so-called computer glitches that changed vote totals in Danville and Lunenburg County. The paper didn’t tell of provisional and absentee ballots being added to the count all day Thursday.
The Perriello-Goode race certainly isn’t as significant as the presidential contest, but it is important. It’s been more than two decades since a sitting member of Virginia’s congressional delegation lost an election. Perriello wasn’t given a chance by most people who bothered to consider the race when it began.
The vote counting is an illuminating story that’s been under-told. Perriello was ahead by more 900 votes. Then he was behind by nearly 300. Then he pulled ahead by 30. And the lead grew from there.
All of this — the election, the drama, the swinging counts — was centered in The Cavalier Daily’s coverage area. Indeed, if Deeds is right, The Cavalier Daily’s core readership contains the votes that made the difference in this race.
Those readers should have learned more about their place in history as that history unfolded.
Tim Thornton is The Cavalier Daily’s ombudsman. He can be reached at ombud@cavalierdaily.com.
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