UNITED STATES: By one vote, a Massachusetts political race for the state house of representatives went from Republican to Democrat after a recount.
Earlier this week, Democratic candidate Kristin Kassner defeated Republican challenger and five-term incumbent Lenny Mirra, winning by one vote following a recount that reduced the candidates’ small vote gap.
The North Shore area, a coastal region between Boston and New Hampshire, was where all the contenders competed for a seat.
Out of the more than 23,000 ballots cast in the area during the midterm election on November 8th, Mirra had a lead over Kassner of 10 votes before the recount.
The 10-vote gap was within the bounds of what is required by law for a recount. In a general area where Mirra had a slim lead, Massachusetts Secretary of State Bill Galvin ordered hand recounts on November 30.
Officials tallied the votes in the issue on Thursday, and the outcome was 11,763 to 11,762.
The smallest of margins put Kassner ahead.
According to the Boston Globe, Mirra declared that he would “definitely” contest the verdict in response to that decision.
However, Kassner believes there was no fraud during the voting process, saying, “I feel the process unfolded as it should. We’ll see what comes when it comes.”
Kassner said in an interview, “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.”
Governor Charlie Baker and a gubernatorial council will now analyze the updated results.
Democrats will control 133 of the 160 house districts come next January if the recount results remain the same.
This represents an increase of four seats over where they were when the last session of Congress convened at the beginning of 2021.
A temporary mail-in voting option was made available in Massachusetts for the first time in 2020 due to pandemic preparedness.
Early this year, lawmakers agreed to expand early voting and make mail-in voting permanent. Mirra and the majority of the Republican House caucus opposed both of these measures.
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