4 Votes Separate 2 Fairfax City Council Candidates; Recount Possible
FAIRFAX CITY, VA — Only four votes separate city council candidates Kate Doyle Feingold and Rachel McQuillen, but votes are still being counted, which means the outcome remains uncertain.
After the Election Night votes were tallied, both candidates were tied with 5,021 votes apiece. But as of 5:41 p.m. on Friday, Doyle Feingold had a four-vote lead over challenger Rachel McQuillen, 5,148 to 5,144.
Wannicha Rojanapradith, the city’s general registrar and director of elections, told Patch on Friday that early voting, Election Day, and mailed absentee ballots have been counted and reported to the State Board of Elections but all of the provisional and some of the post-election ballots remain to be counted.
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The city’s electoral board will reconvene its provisional ballots meeting Thursday, at 9 a.m.
“The ‘final count’ will not take place until all provisional ballots have been reviewed and the Electoral Board has determined the number of provisional ballots to be counted,” Rojanapradith said.
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Even if Doyle Feingold’s four vote lead over McQuillen remains after all the votes are counted, that doesn’t mean she’s automatically on the council. Since only a percentage point separates the two candidates, McQuillen can call for a recount. Doyle Feingold can do the same if McQuillen receives more remaining votes, but only leads by a percentage point.
“There is no automatic recount,” Rojanapradith said. “The difference must be 1 percent or less for the losing candidates to request a recount. If the difference is less than 0.5 percent, the City will pay for a recount; if the difference is 0.5 percent or more, then the losing candidate requesting the recount must pay for it.”
This would not be the first time the city has gone through a recount. In June 2016, Jeff Greenfield filed for a recount after he lost to Nancy Loftus by three votes in the May election. Once the recount was done, Greenfield was the winner by three votes.
In 2023, city council candidate Anahita N. “Ana” Renner petitioned for a recount after losing by 15 votes to first-time candidate Billy Bates. Unfortunately, Renner failed to include all of the winning candidates in her petition.
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Bates’ lawyer argued that all the candidates needed to be notified by the deadline because they were interested parties in the outcome of a recount and Chief Judge Penney Azcarate agreed. On Dec. 2, a three-judge panel dismissed Renner’s petition.
Patch reached out to Doyle Feingold and McQuillen for a comment about the possibility of a recount.
“Officially, I don’t have a statement at this time,” McQuillen said.
No comment from Doyle Feingold has been received. If she does submit one, this story will be updated to include it.
Whoever ends up the most votes after the tally is complete will fill the one council seat that’s left to fill. Unofficially, Stacy R. Hall, Thomas D. “Tom” Peterson, Billy M. Bates, Stacey D. Hardy-Chandler and Anthony Amos have already claimed the other five seats. Here are the vote totals as of Friday:
*Incumbent
The local Electoral Board has until 5 pm on Friday, Nov. 15 to ascertain election results, and the State Board of Elections will meet on Monday, Dec. 2 to certify the results. No results are official until the State Board of Elections has certified them, according to Rojanapradith.
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