UPDATE: Goode will seek recount in Fifth District race

Rep. Virgil Goode plans to file his request today for a recount in the 5th District congressional election after Democrat Tom Perriello was certified as the winner Monday by the expected 745-vote margin.

Goode, a Republican,said friends had urged him to seek the recount, telling him, “You’ve got to do it.”

The six-term incumbent also acknowledged, “It’s an uphill fight, no question.”

A court will set a date for the recount. The last major recount in Virginia, for the 2005 attorney general’s race, was conducted Dec. 20-21 of that year.

Perriello, speaking in Lynchburg before Goode made his announcement in Rocky Mount, indicated that a recount request was likely and he would respect Goode’s decision.

“We’re confident it will not change the outcome of the election,” Perriello spokeswoman Jessica Barba said.

Perriello said he was “humbled and honored” by the State Board of Elections’ certification of his margin.

As the 5th District’s new congressman, Perriello said, he plans to focus on improving the region’s economy and bringing in new jobs, as well as protecting military veterans’ interests.

Perriello spent last week in Washington for an orientation with other newly elected members of Congress.

The newcomers, both Democrat and Republican, “sent a strong signal to the leadership that more blank checks from the federal government is not the answer,” Perriello said at a Lynchburg news conference.

“I think you’re going to see a new era of accountability in the national debate,” Perriello said.

Although he had indicated an interest in being appointed to House committees that focus on transportation and veterans’ affairs, Perriello didn’t offer any indication Monday about what committees he could be on — if his election holds up under a recount.

His margin — Perriello called it “a whopping 745 votes” — indicates “that the 5th District is an independent district,” he said.

“I think voters here tend to look at the individual and say, ‘Who’s got the better plan?’ They don’t look at the party and that’s the way I want to be in Washington, an individual voice for the Southside.”

He also noted that President-elect Barack Obama’s campaign and the national Democratic Party drew a lot of interest in Virginia this year and “my job is to make sure they don’t forget about their new love of Virginia when it gets time to legislate.”

Energy, workforce development, roads and broadband were among 5th District needs on his federal list, Perriello said.

In the last recount of a major election in Virginia, Bob McDonnell was certified the winner over state Sen. Creigh Deeds of Bath County after the recount added 37 votes to his victory margin, which totaled just 360 votes. Almost 2 million votes were cast in attorney general’s race.

The Goode-Perriello contest has a wider margin than that 2005 race, and involves just one-sixth of that year’s total number of votes.

But at least one thing will be different this year, said Goode spokesman Mike Brown. Ballots that are read by optical scanners will be fed through the machines again for the recount.

A court ruled against having ballots rescanned in 2005.

Goode said he didn’t have any reason to suspect fraud, but he noted that election officials’ canvass of the votes in days following the election resulted in what he called 3,200 changes.

“The largest changes came from cities and counties that voted for my opponent,” Goode said. He referred several times to Charlottesville, where the electoral board counted more than 800 votes for Perriello two days after the election. Goode gained about 140 votes in the Charlottesville canvass.

The result was a net gain of more than 670 votes for Perriello in Charlottesville, where the total turnout gave him just more than 80 percent of the votes.