From the EPEC Team Newsletter:
Unofficially at least, the “yes” votes squeaked out a win in Virginia’s April 21 Special Election on redistricting that is still wrapping up — if it does wrap up, that is.
The results would allow Assembly Democrats to take a 6-5 (D-R) congressional map and redistrict Virginia’s 11 seats to a 10-1 (D-R) map despite the Commonwealth’s 48-52 partisan split.
No sooner had the unofficial results been announced, a Tazewell District Court Judge also ruled Wednesday that the referendum results were void because they were conducted illegally, the vote itself unconstitutional. The ruling enjoins Virginia’s election officials from certifying the election results. Democrat Attorney General Jay Jones said he would file an appeal.
The latest ruling adds more legal briefs to the ongoing litigation before the Supreme Court of Virginia over the way the rushed nature of the referendum to change Virginia’s constitution to allow for redistricting by the Democrat-led assembly. Legal challenges are also slated for review over the confusing ballot question.
As for the results, EPEC Team has also found problems in how the summary tallies are being reported in data feeds that the media uses to report the results. The early voting data from the Department of Elections is not lining up with the early voting results in the Election Night data feed from the Department of Elections as well.
Unofficially, the Department of Elections was reporting on its website Wednesday:
Yes: 1,575,316 (51.45%)
No: 1,486,227 (48.55%)
That’s a difference of 89,089 ballots.
How many of those are from Election Day and how many are from the Early Voting period?
Early analysis shows that totals from Early Voting tallies in the Daily Absentee List (DAL) are not translating into similar summary data totals from Election Night.
For example, Chesterfield County showed a 71,762 ballot-difference in the Election Night summaries that does not reconcile with Daily Absentee List (DAL) data for that locality, according to EPEC Senior Data Analyst Rick Naigle:
“There are a few other Localities with added ballots, but most Localities have fewer ballots showing in the [Election Night Summary Data Feed] than in the [Daily Absentee Early Voting List] DAL. The range is from 1,450 fewer (Hanover County) to 71,762 more (Chesterfield County).”
Naigle compared overall summary results from Election Night to unofficial results from Early Voting tallies for In-Person and By Mail, all supplied by the Department of Elections. He sees 68,439 more Early Voting ballots being reported in the Election Night data summary compared to the actual Early Voting numbers that we monitor.
In other words, the Department of Elections is reporting significantly more ballots from early voting than were originally reported during the 45-day period.
We are checking to see if “unmarked” ballots that needed a “cure” were addressed and added into the final tallies. For now, the delta is about well over 60,000 ballots that do not align with Early Voting data in the Election Night summary data feed.
EPEC Team’s Jon Lareau also tallied up local results from the Department of Elections Election Night data feed, which is formatted in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation), a data-interchange format.
The feed can be downloaded from the Department of Elections’ website here (see “Media Export” link at bottom of page).
He found that local results in the JSON feed do not align with the numbers on the Department of Elections website.
For example, when he adds local results, the “no” votes are in a slim lead. When he adds up the overall tallies in the same feed, the numbers align with “yes” squeaking out more votes.
Another data point: When we sort the Department of Elections’ unofficial data from Election Night to only view Mail-in Ballots, we see 215,915 “yes” ballots to 82,278 “no” ballots.
We have been tracking these numbers closely throughout the election, such as whether R-leaning ballots were being rejected (needing “cure”) at a rate much higher than D-leaning ballots, and in patterns that are not random.
(Voters who requested mail-in ballots that may or may not have been received, and also showed up on Election Day, are allowed to cast a provisional ballot. Those are to be adjudicated by localities during their canvas this week.)
Our Takeaway:
Summary data from last night’s election do not align with early voting data (from the DAL).
We are still running the numbers and will update in our next report.
For now, you can see how localities voted according to unofficial Department of Elections data here: Yes and No Votes by Locality.
Many were close, but we shaded by which voted yes and which voted no. The interactive map shows the unofficial numbers.
See the Department of Elections’ unofficial results here: https://enr.elections.virginia.gov/results/public/virginia/elections/2026-April-21-Special/stats. #