Washington: John Driscoll

Representative-elect John Driscoll (D-Spokane) has finally won the race for the 6th Legislative District, position 2, exactly one month after election day.

Spokane County elections officials have announced that, after a mandatory hand recount required from an initial margin of victory of less than 0.25 percent, Driscoll remains ahead of Rep. John Ahern (R-Spokane), though the vote counted changed slightly from the original tally.

The automatic recount process will begin today in the first of two state legislative district races whose election results were close enough, within 150 votes and less than 0.25 percent, to require a state mandated recount.

The Washington State House Republican Organizational Committee has retained a law firm to file a temporary restraining order to top the counting of ballots in Spokane County’s 6th Legislative District race between Rep. John Ahern (R-Spokane) and John Driscoll (D-Spokane), which Driscoll leads by 63 votes.

More than a week after last Tuesday’s election, with nearly every ballot tallied and reported, three state legislative races are on the cusp of requiring a mandatory recount, which would come about in a race decided by a margin of less than one half of one percent.

Two of those elections, the 6th Legislative District matchup of Rep. John Ahern (R-Spokane) and John Driscoll (D-Spokane) and the 44th LD race with Rep. Liz Loomis (D-Snohomish) and Mike Hope (R-Everett), are almost certain to require another round, and may even call for a manual recount.