VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Election officials in Virginia Beach checked over Tuesday’s election results on Wednesday, with a focus on one local House of Delegates race decided by just under 20 votes.
In the 83rd Virginia House of Delegates race, Democratic candidate Nancy Guy, remained narrowly ahead of Republican Incumbent Chris Stolle by just 18 votes after Wednesday’s canvassing, which is open to the public.
It was a roller coaster of emotions for Guy on Tuesday night to finally learn she was up by those 18 votes.
Around 10:30 p.m., Guy declared victory, but moments later, the Associated Press declared Stolle the winner in the highly contested race.
Guy told 10 On Your Side the numbers she initially added up from local precinct numbers, which differentiated from the State Board of Elections website, showed her in the lead.
The Board of Elections’ website had crashed as polls closed Tuesday, which Guy mentioned at her victory party when discussing the incredibly close numbers. “Those numbers are not lining up with the internal precinct reports that we had gotten, so it’s important that every vote be counted,” she said.
On Wednesday, election officials made sure the numbers that were tabulated by each of the precinct ballot machines match the number put into the state computer system.
“It’s important that every vote be counted,” Guy added.
Election officials also went though the more than 200 provisional ballots in the race. They won’t added into the totals until Friday when the results are certified, but it’s unlikely any will sway the results.
Individual ballots themselves won’t be counted one-by-one unless the loser decides to challenge the results.
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