Wed Nov 06 08:03:28 UTC 2024: ## Recounts Likely Won’t Change Outcome of Close US Elections, Experts Say
**WASHINGTON** – Despite the narrow margins in the 2024 US Presidential Election, recounts are unlikely to change the outcome, according to experts.
“The original count is pretty accurate because the machines work – they work very well,” said Tammy Patrick, a former election official in Arizona.
While 36 statewide recounts have taken place since the famous 2000 Florida recount, only three resulted in a new winner, and those were decided by a mere hundreds of votes.
“There is no precedent for a recount changing the winner in a race with margins that big,” said Patrick, referring to races where candidates are separated by thousands or even tens of thousands of votes.
The most recent statewide race overturned by a recount was the 2008 Minnesota Senate race, where the difference between the two candidates was just 0.02 percentage points.
The average change in the winning margin across all recounts since 2000 was a mere 0.03 percentage points, indicating the minor impact of recounts.
Experts attribute most of the changes in vote counts to human error, such as voters not filling out ballots correctly or election workers miscounting votes.
While recounts are more likely to occur in down-ballot races with close margins, even then, the outcome rarely changes.
“Recounts are shifting a very small number of votes,” said Deb Otis, director of research and policy at FairVote. “We’re going to see recounts in 2024 that are not going to change the outcome.”
While many states have automatic recount procedures triggered by narrow margins, others allow candidates to request recounts at their own expense.
The Associated Press may declare a winner in a race that is eligible for a recount if they deem the lead too large to be overturned.
While the AP may wait for the results of recounts in very close races, they will declare a winner in races where the margin is large enough to make a recount irrelevant.
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