FINALLY a bit of a story about Wayne Powell's race!

[obxhead]

5. The problem with Spotsylvania county

was not the move so much as the ballots within that area. As you said the S/SW half of Spotsylvania county was moved to VA 7 from VA 1 with the gerrymandering move in 2010. Splitting a county between 2 districts seems kind of silly to me, but for all I know it may very well be a common occurrence throughout the US.

Many of the voters in the new VA 7 areas voted on ballots for VA 1 areas. So how many people in Spotsy were supposed to vote in the Cantor/Powell race but received the improper ballots? I couldn't answer that, surely it wasn't enough to turn the tide of this election, but it's a noteworthy problem. It very well have changed the overall percentages to look even WORSE for Cantor.

Was it intentional? I have no proof, but I think Cantor's team could see the way the tea leaves were blowing. I wouldn't put it past R's in the area intentionally making a "mistake" with the ballots in order to support Mr "end all public aid" Cantor.