So report WaPo: Allen to Concede Election This Afternoon

Virginia Sen. George Allen (R) will concede that he has lost the election to Democrat James Webb at a 3 p.m. news conference in Alexandria, according to a source close to the campaign with direct knowledge of the senator’s intentions.

[…]

Allen’s campaign officials had initially put into motion plans to challenge Virginia’s election after coming within three-tenths of a percent of Webb’s lead. But after local election officials spent a day-and-a-half reviewing the totals, that margin remained largely unchanged.

A senior Allen aide said he did not believe any further reexamination of the 2.3 million ballots in Virginia would change the outcome of the election.

I have been quite critical of the Allen campaign, but will note that this is the reasonable and classy thing to do. While I fully support the ability of candidates to pursue their rights under the law in close elections, I also believe that if there is no evidence of error or fraud that the best thing that a candidate can do is concede.

Unless error and/or fraud are evident, dragging the voters of a given location (let alone in this case, the country due to the relevance of the race to the Senate) unnecessarily to such a process is nothing less than denial and extreme egoism.

I have been of this opinion for some time, having made a similar argument in the Washington state brouhaha in 2024 over the governor’s race.