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Alexandria Contest: It Needed Attentk
Reprinted from the Virginian Pilot, Norfolk and Portsmouth, Virginia, issue of September 23, 1961 at the request of a subscriber.
Dennis K^ane, who lost as a candidate for the General Assembly in the Democratic primary in Alexandria to Delegate James M. Thomson by a single vote out of 8,915 votes cast, found (himself a “hero” at the Citizens for Democratic Government dinner in Norfolk Thursday. And not only a hero—a “martyr.” There were other defeated candidates on hand. But there was only one who had been defeated in the peculiar circumstances that have made the Thomson-Lane contest a cause celebre in 1961 politics in Virginia.
Mr. Lane is entitled at (east to the attention. The real question is whether he is entitled to a good deal more. A further question is whether the state can afford the conditions in one of its elections which permit anyone to be made a “martyr” in this way.
Delegate Thomson now has a problem in the November election. He is opposed by an independent, Robert Colby, whom he had a hard time defeating two years ago. It seems likely that the hard struggle will cause unhappiness among some voters and lead them to support Mr. Thomson’s opponents. But that is not the major point for the state at large.
The major point is that an election of this nature, a legal figh£ of this severity, and a decision in which judgments arc so divided raise questons not easily answered by the facts in hand. First the count showed a 4-vote majority for Lane. Then it showed a 14-vote majority for Lane. Then the three judges came into action.
They disagreed on whether they had authority to hear the case. They disagreed on the markings on disputed ballots. They disagreed on whether a cuilicue on one ballot could be regarded as a coss or a check. They wound up by throwing out 22 votes counted for Lane and 7 counted for Thomson and by giving Thomson the prize by one vote. And nobody could appeal from these hard, tight, close decisions.
\This is not an a suring way to decide the issue. It is not unprecedented for an election of this size to be determined by one vote. But when it is so determined the public will always feel better if the decision can be made without so niany uncertanties and disagreements along the way. The process ought to receive the attention of Virginians concerned with the good name of elections in the state.
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