KPCC’s Sharon McNary reports: “Recount in @CAController race ends today. @SpeakerPerez spokesman @douglasjherman says it’s over. Cost: about $30K for 10 votes.”

I told the audience at #CACEO yesterday that this what what I expected unless Perez started finding a lot more votes fast to make up his 481 vote margin.

But making the candidate pay for a recount in such a razor-thin race is a dumb idea, and it led to the kind of cherry picking that Perez engaged in.  The election officials I spoke to yesterday were quite concerned any recount under the existing rules would run into the deadlines for printing ballots. They did not know if and when the courts would get involved.

The CA legislature needs to rewrite the rules, creating stated-funded, fast and automatic recounts with margins this close.

Do I think the legislature will do so?  No way. They still have not fixed obvious and easily fixable problems revealed in the 2003 CA gubernatorial recall.