A Democrat was declared the winner of a Massachusetts state House race after a recount, The Guardian reports.
Democrat Kristin Kassner narrowly defeated five-term incumbent Republican Lenny Mirra in a seat in the North Shore area between Boston and New Hampshire.
Mirra began the recount with a lead of just 10 votes out of more than 23,000 ballots cast.
Massachusetts Secretary of State Bill Galvin ordered a hand recount of the ballots last month.
The final tally showed Kassner leading 11,763 to 11,762.
If the results are approved by the governor and legislature, Democrats will hold 133 of the state’s 160 house districts next year, a gain of four seats from last year.
Republican to challenge results:
Mirra said that there will “absolutely be a legal challenge” over the results.
“Some [ballots] were filled out in pencil, some were filled out with different colored ink, some had stray marks. Some had a name written in the write-in and then an oval filled out,” he told the Boston Globe.
Mirra also complained that he got “totally screwed” by the way the legislature redrew his district during redistricting.
“I lost five of my seven towns. Usually, a rep district changes by maybe five percent or 10 percent," he complained. "It's an unheard-of amount of change for my district. It was devastating because it's like starting all over. There was no benefit to being the incumbent because we were a complete unknown in these new towns."
Kassner defends process:
“I feel the process unfolded like it should. We’ll see what comes when it comes,” Kassner told the Boston Globe.
“We are not suspicious of anything that ever happened. [The recount] was just really just to ensure that, between humans and machines, we really caught every vote that was counted,” she added in an interview with CBS. “We thank the tremendous outpouring of people that really got involved and mobilized to go through this process this weekend. It’s really a true test of democracy.”
