Following the March 1 Republican primary election results, Andy Hopper and Tom Glass initiated recounts in their respective primary elections for Texas’ House Districts 64 and 17.
Some minor discrepancies were found, but none large enough to change the results of either race.
In House District 64, Hopper asked for the recount after election day results showed he was eighty-eight votes behind incumbent Rep. Lynn Stucky.
House District 64 formerly consisted of only Denton County but was expanded to include part of Wise County, Hopper’s home county, in the latest round of redistricting.
Election day results showed Hopper down by 2,621 votes in Denton County and up by 2,533 in Wise County. He only requested a recount for Denton County.
“With an election this close, I feel as if we owe it to everyone to make sure the votes were counted properly, and this manual recount will help ensure that,” Hopper said at the time of his recount request.
Stucky’s margin grew by six votes according to the recount results, meaning he is the official winner by ninety-four votes.
The incumbent Stucky will now officially be on the ballot for the November general election. No Democratic challenger is participating in the race for the Republican-favored district, so that means Stucky will hold on to his seat.
In House District 17, Glass was the third-place finisher in a race headed to a runoff between the top two vote-getters. Election day results showed Glass 424 votes behind the second-place finisher, Bastrop County Judge Paul Pape. Stan Gerdes, a former staffer for Rick Perry, took first place with nearly 30% of the vote.
After redistricting, House District 17 comprises five counties; Bastrop, Burleson, Caldwell, Lee, and Milam. The seat is open after incumbent Rep. John Cyrier (R-Lockhart) announced his retirement in November.
Glass asked for a recount in four counties that back up their votes with paper ballots. He raised $5,600 from over one hundred donors to finance the paper ballot recount.
In Texas, the state does not finance recounts. Instead, the candidate who requests the recount must provide the necessary funds. According to Texas statutes, a challenger must also be within 10% of the top vote-getter to ask for a recount.
Some minor discrepancies were found in three of the four counties, but the preliminary results did not change. Pape will officially face Gerdes in the May 24 runoff election. The runoff winner will be heavily favored in the November general election against Democratic challenger Madeline Eden, who ran unopposed in her primary.
Glass claimed he never expected the recount to find enough votes to move him into the runoff but did believe there was some benefit in that the recount showed the election’s integrity.
“My understanding is that if I did not take this step, the opportunity for the people of Texas to see results of a manual paper recount in this cycle might not have happened, and that was another motivator for pushing for the recount,” Glass wrote.
“The most significant benefit from the recount was that we have uncovered the need for either better instructions on the reconciliation reports or better training for election administrators, or both,” Glass added.
Glass said that sixty to eighty votes were double-counted in Caldwell County. The recount discovered that those ballots were double-counted due to an improperly completed reconciliation report, which is meant to catch errors like double-counted votes.
Bastrop was the only county where the recount showed the same results as on the election day. Lee County found fifteen additional votes for Jen Bezner, which increased her share of the votes from 2.5% to 3.0%. Burleson County found four additional ballots that were not counted on election day.
According to Glass, “The variances came in the precincts affected by an equipment outage on Election Day. The complicated and confusing expedient fixes for that problem are the likely cause of the variances between the electronic count and the paper.”
“I think you should be happy that you did (the recount) because a significant learning and lots of experience and organizational strengthening was gained by Texas Republicans in election integrity,” Glass concluded.