Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert’s House Race Expected to See Automatic Recount

Boebert
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Jacob Bliss
Washington, DC

Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert (CO) only leads Democrat challenger Adam Frisch by roughly 550 votes in the tight race to represent Colorado’s Third Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, so the race is expected to go to an automatic recount.

Nine days after Election Day, Colorado’s Third Congressional District remains undecided, as Boebert’s lead was cut in half after the most recent ballot drop. Boebert only led by 551 voters Thursday night; she had 163,758 votes (50.08 percent) to the Democrat’s 163,207 voters (49.92 percent), with 99 percent reported.

As Breitbart News noted last week, Boebert — running for a second term in Congress in the Centennial State — took a slight lead in the race last Thursday morning after trailing by 64 votes.

She’s running against Frisch, a local businessman. He served on the Aspen City Council and was also accused in recent weeks of being the target of a blackmail attempt concerning surveillance footage of him showing up at a storage unit facility where a local business owner alleged he was caught having an affair.

The New York Times noted that the total amount of votes counted had remained stagnant for much of the past week due to a couple of different factors, one being the mail ballots from members of the military and Americans living overseas that were allowed to arrive as late as Wednesday, and the voters who had their ballots rejected were able to correct those problems until Wednesday.

Even though Boebert has taken the lead with one percent of the vote left to be counted, a recount could be triggered if the final margin is less than or equal to half a percentage point.

The Denver Post’s Conrad Swanson explained:

If neither candidate gains a wide enough margin, election officials might not declare an official winner in the race for weeks, depending on how the process plays out. Not only would a slim margin of victory trigger an automatic recount, but either candidate can also request a recount so long as they’re willing to pay for it. The process could then be extend into December.

The Times also noted that the Associated Press could call the race at a point where the lead for one of the candidates extends past the half a percentage point margin. But if the race stays close, it would more than likely trigger a recount, further delaying the call.

Colorado law triggers a mandatory recount if the margin is half a percentage point or less, and according to the secretary of state’s office, the recount must be ordered by December 5 and must be completed by December 13.

The losing candidate, whoever it may be, can request a recount at their own expense. The request from a candidate must also be made by December 6 and must be completed by December 15.

Dave Wasserman of Cook Political Report explained that the race is headed for an automatic recount on Thursday evening, noting that it is “extremely rare for a lead of that size to be overturned in a recount.”

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.