Danville City Council race remains too close to call

DANVILLE, Va. – The picture of who will be Danville City Council’s newest member is getting a bit clearer.

On Friday afternoon, the city added its remaining absentee votes that arrived by the state deadline of Friday at noon.

These votes grew Bryant Hood’s 89-vote lead to 106 votes over Fred Shanks. The third candidate, Petrina Carter, trails by too many votes to win the seat.

The next step in the process is to verify and count the provisional ballots cast in the election.

Danville voters cast 160 provisional ballots, according to the city’s general registrar, Peggy Petty.

She expects the majority of these provisional ballots to count as many were people who received an absentee ballot, decided to vote in-person, but forgot to bring their absentee ballot with them.

She also mentioned that 14 provisional ballots were cast during the time when the fiber line in Richmond was cut on Oct. 13.

Those provisional ballots will be added to the city’s vote count by Monday at 5 p.m.