After an unofficial vote count, an official vote count and a machine recount, a spokeswoman for Rep. Robin Hayes is calling on Democratic challenger Larry Kissell to give up his fight to erase Hayes' slim advantage in the nation's closest U.S. House race.
"We've counted the votes three times now, and each of those three times, the numbers have shown Robin Hayes the winner of this election," Hayes spokeswoman Carolyn Hern said.
There's only one problem with what Hern said -- it is untrue.
On election night, the votes were counted for the first time.
Ten days later, certain votes (provisional votes) were counted for the first time.
Then, there was an automated recount, netting Kissell 10 more votes.
No vote has been counted more than twice.
So ... what's Carolyn talking about?
A recount finished Tuesday cut Hayes' lead in the 8th Congressional District race to 329 votes out of more than 121,000 cast.
"Maybe Kissell is under some delusion that counting the same ballots a different way will yield a different result," Hern said.
But Kissell is pressing ahead with a demand for a hand recount - something he is entitled to under state law because he trails by less than one percentage point. The current State Board of Elections tally is 60,926 votes for Hayes to 60,597 for Kissell.
BTW, Carolyn -- as to the relationship between how you count something and what happens ... consider this little paper on Rindler quanta.