Nation’s Most Expensive State Supreme Court Race May Go to Recount
A Democrat who lost a close—and very expensive—election battle for a seat on the Alabama Supreme Court is confident she will win in an automatic recount.
With 99 percent of the precincts counted, Deborah Bell Paseur narrowly lost the race to Republican criminal appeals judge Greg Shaw, who won 50.4 percent of the vote, the Associated Press reports. Paseur, a former county judge, believes a new count will show she is the winner, her campaign manager Marion Steinfels told AP.
Spending on the race topped $5 million, making it the most expensive state supreme court race this year, the Birmingham News reported last week. The two candidates spent a combined $3.8 million and a group supporting Shaw spent $1.3 million.
State law requires a recount when the margin of victory is less than .5 percent, the Birmingham News reports in a separate story.
“With thousands of ballots still being counted across the state, this race is simply too close to call,” Steinfels told AP. “Judge Paseur feels strongly that every Alabamian’s vote [be] counted and that when they are, she will prevail.”
