Joe Kent, after losing one of the very few House races to flip blue in 2022, requested a recount because of “the obligation we have to our supporters to ensure certainty about the outcome.” He spent $48,589.05 of his supporters’ money for this certainty.
The curly-haired conservative crackpot (photo, left) lost Washington’s 3rd congressional district race to Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, an auto shop owner, by 2,629 votes. I wrote (here) that his recount was quixotic because recounts don’t change results by more than a few votes. Some people have to learn the hard way.
Well, we now have proof, in the form of pudding. Perez has picked up 7 more votes, Kent 4 more, with two counties yet to report. Each candidate also gained 1 vote from a separate recount in another race. (See story here.) That’s a net gain for Perez of 3 votes, expanding her lead to 2,632 votes.
That’s about par for the course. Ballot counting machines are very accurate; they don’t miscount or change votes. Recounts typically add a handful of votes from ballots that were misplaced, had markings the counting machine couldn’t read, or weren’t counted for some other reason. Nearly always, the number of such ballots is very small. An election has to be agonizingly close for a recount to change the results.
This recount, like nearly all recounts, is confirming the initial election results. It’s one more piece of evidence that Republican claims of rigged elections, switched votes, and the like are fantasy. It demonstrates, once again, that election workers are doing their job correctly.
It’s time to set aside the feverish conspiracy theories about our elections and respect the process, the workers, and the results.