How recounts work

A recount is another count of ballots that were already cast, to check whether the first tabulation read them correctly. It is not a new election, and it is not a license to add ballots that missed the deadline. The Election Assistance Commission describes the usual triggers: a candidate asks, a voter asks, the margin falls inside a number written in state law, or a court orders it. Which of those paths exists, what it costs, and how fast it must finish are state statutes. There is no single federal recount deadline for every office.

Automatic recounts are the ones people confuse with “close.” Some states recount if the margin is inside a percentage or a raw-vote number. Others never recount unless someone asks and, often, pays. A race can be very close and produce no recount, or it can be recounted because a candidate asked even though the margin was outside the automatic band. The National Conference of State Legislatures tracks those differences because they are not intuitive. This page does not reprint all 50 statutes.

The method varies. A recount might re-run paper ballots through scanners. It might be a hand inspection of every ballot. It might be a sample. The order of operations with audits also varies. An audit checks that the equipment behaved, often on a sample of ballots. A recount retabulates a contest. A state can do one, both, or neither, on the calendar its law sets. Neither process certifies a winner by itself. Certification is the official attestation that the canvass is complete.

Recount totals can differ from election-night totals by a small number of ballots and still confirm the same leader. They can also change a leader when the first margin was smaller than the corrections. Both outcomes have happened in American elections. The existence of a recount is not evidence that the first count was dishonest. It is evidence that the state has a procedure for a second look. A candidate who wants a court to throw ballots out is in a contest or an election challenge, which is a lawsuit, not a recount.

Federal offices still depend on the state canvass. The House and Senate are the judges of the elections and returns of their own members, under the Constitution, but the ordinary path is the certificate the state sends. A reader waiting on a close House or Senate race should watch the state election office’s recount page and its certification deadline, not a national color map. This site will not label a recount as a win for either candidate.