That sounds logical, but it probably doesn't work that way. We had a similar situation in Washington State a few years ago in our Governor's race. The GOP candidate sued for a Contest - the formal process to contest an election. He *proved* that their were more illegitimate votes than the margin of victory, but unbelievably this is not the standard for invalidating an election in Washington, it is that the evidence shows the election was stolen. Seeing as it was impossible to determine (in many cases) who the illegitimate votes were for the election was allowed to stand.
I don't think you can sue to overturn an election as long as you have not taken full advantage of the process given in law for setting things right.
What ever the "contest" rules are in this case are what the candidate should follow. If that results in the GOP House giving him the win, so be it. Politics ain't softball.
The election was held on November 2, 2004, with the initial count showing Gregoire trailing Rossi by 261 votes. However, a legally mandated machine recount reduced that lead to only 42 votes, then a hand count that was requested and funded by the state's Democratic Party gave Gregoire a 10-vote lead.Donks take their wins however they can get them, we need to start more aggresivly fighting these BS recounts and blatant vote fraud.Following a State Supreme Court ruling that allowed several hundred ballots from King County to be included, her lead was further increased to 130 votes,[15] but when the vote was certified by the state's Secretary of State, Sam Reed, at the end of December, one vote which had been counted in Thurston County past the deadline was disqualified and her lead was reduced to 129 votes.[16] Washington's Republican leadership then filed suit, claiming that hundreds of votes, including votes by felons,[17] deceased voters,[18] and double voters,[18] were included in the canvass, but on June 6, 2005, Judge John E.
Bridges ruled that the Republican party did not provide enough evidence that the disputed votes were ineligible—or for whom they were cast—to overturn the election.[19] Judge Bridges did note that there was evidence that 1,678 votes had been illegally cast throughout the state,[20] but found that the only evidence submitted to show how those votes had been cast were sworn statements from four felons that they had voted for Rossi.[20] He subtracted those four votes from Rossi's total and upheld the election.[21]
I was engaging in idealistic thinking of what should be, and agree with your more realistic assessment. Certainly the re-count drama has to be played out (and sometimes these do change the results), before pursuing other avenues. There are massive gaps between the law and common sense. In the Washington State case as presented, an honest court would have voided the election, based on the logic of its own ruling: if it was not possible to determine who received the illegal votes, neither was it possible to determine which candidate received the most votes. No doubt the question was framed in such a way as to allow the court to find it had no basis to change the status quo, rather than to force the court to judge whether the election process yielded legitimate results. This accords a large advantage to cheaters.
It would be interesting to know the applicable law in Virginia. There always seems to be a barrier to opening the real can of worms for all to see.