Why were there no votes reported from Bedford County in the Sixth District race?

An eagle-eyed reader pointed out to me that Bedford County, population: 83,651, has a voting precinct in the Sixth District, and that the Virginia Department of Elections is reporting that exactly zero votes were cast there in the 2026 election.

“I’m not sure what’s up with this,” the reader offered, as her observation.

My internal response: right there with you.

First thing I did to try to sleuth this was look up how Bedford County voted in the 2022 midterm election in the Sixth.

The result there:

• Ben Cline (R): 1
• Jennifer Lewis (D): 0

Huh?

Then, in 2024:

• Ken Mitchell (D): 4
• Ben Cline (R): 2

What the heck is going on here?

Turns out, it’s an accident of redistricting.

The 2021 redistricting, the first that we did under the supposedly nonpartisan model, which failed to produce a working map and ended up in the hands of the MAGA Virginia Supreme Court, left one house that is split down the middle, half sitting in Bedford County, the other half in Roanoke County, as being entirely in the Sixth District.

Roanoke County is located in the Sixth; Bedord County is otherwise split between the Fifth and Ninth.

Stories on this oddity on a local Smith Mountain Lake news website and Cardinal News tell us that the home was shared, as of 2022, anyway, by a man and his fiancée, who, I would hope at this point in world history, have by now tied the knot.

The SmithMountainLake.com report noted that the couple are both Libertarians, for what that’s worth.

One of the two voted for Ben Cline in 2022, neither voted in 2026.

What doesn’t seem to follow is the 4-2 vote in favor of the Democrat, Ken Mitchell, in 2024, which is straight from the Virginia Department of Elections website.

I mean, could be that 2024 was a presidential, and voter turnout is always better in presidential years.

(I’m being sarcastic there, if you couldn’t already tell.)

Anyway, no, the 0-0 split in the 2026 cycle in Bedford in the Sixth isn’t hope for Democrats, even if our side got 66.7 percent of the vote in Bedford just two short years ago.

Elon Musk didn’t steal this one for his buddy, Ben Cline.

If anything, we may have something to investigate regarding 2024.