This is why Democrats hate hand recounts. Those hands cannot be programmed to post Democratic victories. There were several recounts. In the machine count and the machine recount Democrat Craig Cooper. The Democrats cannot even cry that the commission is biased. The commission decides which vote count to accept. The commission is made up of two Democrats and one Republican. They had their choice of 3 or 4 counts, but they chose to go with the hand recount.
The hand recount showed there were 45 fewer absentee ballots than the count of the machine. Of those, 31 were for Cooper and 14 for Republican Luana Stoltenberg. Not surprisingly, those 45 nonexistent votes made the difference that put Cooper ahead. Election officials blamed the machine jamming that caused the error. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. Hardly been used except by a seventy-year-old woman who only crossed on Sundays in order to reach her church. It’s a real steal.
The three-member board determined the totals to be 5,073 for Stoltenberg to 5,062 for Democrat Craig Cooper. That gave the Republican the victory and like a good sport, Cooper conceded the race. Some candidates are election deniers like Stacey Abrams, who has still not conceded the 2018 race that she lost by 55,000 votes.
After one machine recount, Cooper led by five votes and he used that result to declare himself the winner:
“It has been an amazing day on a long, rewarding journey. I look forward to serving all the residents of Iowa House District 81. I pledge to start every day thinking about the people I represent.”
The second recount was by machine and once again it declared Cooper the winner. That was followed up by a hand recount and that tally was the one they certified.
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELThe aforementioned three-member board then conducted a hand count using a “different process,” which resulted in Stoltenberg once again being declared the victor. According to the auditor, the board has the final say in which count it ultimately goes with, and it felt most confident with the hand recount.
After three days of counting and sorting, it was determined that the board found 45 fewer absentee ballots than the auditor’s count, the Quad-City Times reports. The swing came from 31 fewer votes for Cooper, and 14 fewer for Stoltenberg. That dropped Cooper’s final tally to the accepted total of 5,062, which was not enough to match Stoltenberg’s 5,073.
Kevin Hall, spokesperson for the Iowa secretary of state, said in a statement that he felt the recount board was bipartisan, as it included “two Democrats and one Republican,” who have “publicly stated they are confident in the results of their recount and we thank them for their efforts.”
Cooper said:
“There were 31 votes that just simply disappeared. I have no idea whether the ballots weren’t run or whether the ballots never existed.”
Stoltenberg subsequently thanked District 81 in a Facebook post, telling voters:
“I want to hear what is important to you and how I can serve you these next couple of years.”
The results will now move up the ladder of certification.
