Hail Mary Pass

Some of us already knew Virginia Beach City Councilman John Uhrin was shameless. Who knew he was religious too?

How else to explain yesterday’s Hail Mary?

No doubt you heard. The incumbent councilman—who couldn’t scrape up a plurality of the vote in a four-way race —has deployed a last-minute desperation tactic to keep his seat.

Uhrin, who finished 212 votes behind newcomer David Nygaard, asked for a recount several weeks ago.

Fine. Whatever. He’s entitled to it. We get to pay. Lucky us.

But now Uhrin’s asking the courts to disqualify Nygaard and give the win to him, resurrecting the moth-eaten charge that the winner didn’t live in the Beach district when he entered the race.

A similar complaint was filed with the Republican Commonwealth’s Attorney last summer. Colin Stolle’s office investigated Democrat Nygaard and said there was insufficient evidence of a crime.

Nygaard got to stay on the ballot. 

End of story.

Or so we thought. Now the sore loser is asking the courts to intervene.

“John Uhrin is trying to disenfranchise almost 50,000 voters and overturn an election by manipulating the courts in an attempt to achieve what he failed to do on Election Day,” Nygaard told me yesterday in the contemporary living room of his apartment on 19th Street.

“I believe the judge will see this for what it is,” he said. “A craven political move.”

It’s worse than that when you crunch the numbers. Some of Nygaard’s biggest margins were in precincts with large minority populations. If successful, Uhrin’s ploy would wipe out the votes of thousands of the Beach’s minority voters.

Not a good look.

This is a frantic move by a member of City Council who was bad at his job. If Uhrin had served his constituents as diligently as he served developers, he would have been re-elected. Incumbency is usually a high hurdle for challengers to overcome.

Not this time. One opponent whose name remained on the ballot after he dropped out of the race got nearly 16,000 votes.

Embarrassing.

Nygaard’s move to the Beach district in order to run for this seat was well publicized before Election Day. 

The folks who voted for Nygaard knew about it and didn’t care.

Let it go, Mr. Uhrin. Barring a miracle at the recount, you lost.