We had a very close District Clerk's race...challenger who lost by 60 votes has already sued the county.

Haven't done a recount before - what pitfalls are lurking out there for me? Forewarnings appreciated....

Lisa L. Peterson
Nolan County Attorney

We also have a request for a recount, and I don't even know where to begin. Any information would be appreciated......

www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/laws/recounts gets you to a Sec State write up that is pretty clear and has enough references to get you into the election code.

Main thing I've seen today is that the challenger puts up a pretty hefty deposit and pays for the recount if there isn't a change in results.

Lisa L. Peterson
Nolan County Attorney

Close? That's not close.

Close is Kleberg County Commissioner Precinct 2. The final election night tally was 616-615.

always wondered how you have a recount if the electronic voting machines were used?
Hit the "totals" button again?....reprint the results stored on a computer chip?....how does anything change?....just curious.

The SOS link was very halpful,Lisa. Thanks.

A challenger can require that votes initially counted electronically be counted manually...or run through the machines again! So far, no petition has been filed...we'll see. Perhaps she thinks that the lawsuit she filed is enough for now...!!

Lisa L. Peterson
Nolan County Attorney

i am a tad slow so please humor me....what is there to count manually?....a piece of paper that the computer generates?
i understand the law allowing it, i just dont see how the results can ever change since there is no paper ballot to interpret....what am i missing?

Actually, a good question. There are electronically counted ballots that are paper but that people fill out with a special pencil(fill in the arrow/box/whatever). And, as a very different method, there are machines where people vote on a computer and press a button.

It is possible to require hand-counting of hand-marked paper ballots that were initially counted by being run through an electronic scan reader.

That is exactly the situation in our county. The ballots are paper, but are fed into and counted by a machine. The candidate is requesting that the same ballots be re-counted manually.

In our county, there are no paper ballots...voting is all done on a touch screen computer terminal....hence the reason for my confusion.
just assumed that once the votes were entered on the computer chip any recount would remain unchanged.

If you have never had occasion to see how people mark paper ballots, you will be amazed at the dizzying variety of ways that people interpret the instructions. There will truly be some marked ballots from which you cannot figure out the voter's intended vote, and there will be others that a human being will count differently from the way a machine will count them. At least with computer voting they either picked A or they picked B (or C or whatever). On paper ballots, not necessarily...