One year after a panel of three federal judges upheld Virginia's law requiring a photo ID to vote, the balance of power in Virginia's legislature rests on a single vote.
In a recount, Democrat challenger Shelly Simonds won House District 94 race by a final count of 11,608 to 11,607, but a three-judge panel refused to certify the vote Wednesday. It said a ballot that election officials found invalid should have been counted for the Republican incumbent, making the race a tie, which under state law will likely be "settled by lot," essentially a coin toss.
The result illustrates how much one vote matters. Conversely, it also illustrates how consequential it can be when even a single vote is suppressed by photo ID requirements. A 2014 analysis by the Government Accountability Office of the effect of voter ID laws in Kansas and Tennessee found turnout dropped 1.9 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively, with likely Democratic voters most affected.
The voters who enabled Simonds to tie a Republican incumbent were part of a Democratic wave that elected a Democratic governor and gave Democrats big gains in the House. Opposition to President Trump has energized Democratic voters, but they are also angry about Republican state legislators who've narrowed access to voting and have warped the election results in their favor through gerrymandering.
Those efforts to undermine democracy are being countered by a surge of it, one vote at a time.
