Iowa: Machines Declare Democrat Winner in House Race, But Then the Hand Recount Overturns It for Republican

The latest example of a vote hand-count showing the machine count was wrong occurred in Iowa and resulted in Republican candidate Luana Stoltenberg toppling Democrat Craig Cooper in a state House race.

WQDA-TV reported on election night that Stoltenberg had won her race by 29 votes. Given the razor-tight result, officials sought to conduct a machine recount on Nov. 15, but that effort was stopped after the tabulator machine repeatedly jammed.

A hand recount followed on Nov. 17 and then another machine recount on Nov. 18, which put Cooper in the lead by six votes.