Recount! Glorious Ratings-Boosting Recount!

Van Wanggaard, the Republican Wisconsin state senator from Racine that has- for now- lost his recall election in the 21st district (most of Racine County) and in so doing flipped control to the Democrats in that chamber- for now- has called for a recount to contest that result. The tally, pre-recount, shows Wanggaard with 35,517 votes, and challenger John Lehman, also from Racine, with 36,351 votes, a difference of 834.

The percentages have Lehman up 50.6-49.4 on Wanggaard, a margin of 1.2%. That puts things in a bit of middle ground covered by state recount laws in which the number of votes cast exceeds 1,000. If the margin was 0.5% or less, Wanggaard would be entitled to a free recount. If the margin was 2% or more, he would have to pay the entire cost of the recount. He falls between those two points, however, and in that case, he will have to pay something, but not very much, just $5 per ward. That works out to $685 for the 137 wards in play.

Really, the rest of the analysis on this boils down to the same thing that always happens in a recount: the prospective winner says the prospective loser is just delaying the inevitable; the prospective loser says he just wants to make sure and/or has claimed some sort of irregularity. All you can do is sit tight.