 Valtramie County and the state auditor's office have completed a recount of votes for the district 5A state representative race between Republican Matt Bliss and D.F.Eller John Purcell. Election day results of the race showed Purcell barely beating Bliss by eight votes. Purcell expanded that margin to 11 votes in today's recount. The official recount was requested by Bliss late last month. Each vote was counted today by hand by teams comprised of employees of the state auditor's office, election officials, township judges and one appointed observer from both Bliss and Purcell. Next, the results of the recount will be sent to St. Paul. When we're all finished counting the ballots, we will record all of the results, the hand-counted manual vote counts, record those into the Secretary of State's website, and any ballots that are challenged will be sent down to the Secretary of State's office in the statewide canvassing for this recount will be December 17th, so at that point they will make the results official. The recount was publicly funded because the difference of votes between the candidates was less than one half of one percentage point. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.