Elizabeth Frizell, the former state district judge who came up just short of being nominated for the Democratic candidate for district attorney, isn’t going to seek a recount after all. Last week, she prepped a public statement and sent it around town saying that the thin margin—less than half a percentage point—had prompted her to call for a recount.
Carol Donovan, the Democratic chair, said she received a written request from Frizell’s campaign but then never got the deposit to cover its costs. State law puts the onus of paying for it on the candidate. On Monday, she posted to her Facebook that she’s changed her mind. The recount deadline would’ve been today at 10 a.m. Frizell is maintaining, however, “that misconduct impacted this outcome.” After absentee ballots were counted, Frizell lost the race to former State District Judge John Creuzot by 589 total votes. More than 113,000 people cast ballots, and her opponent has denied any misconduct.
“In order to ensure that each vote is counted, I will be exploring other options to ensure the electoral process is fair and just for all voters. Countless people have reached out to my office concerning their inability to vote in the DA race due to ballot error and other violations,” read her statement. “Moreover, evidence of mail- in voter fraud and other forms of malfeasance currently under investigation leads me to believe that misconduct impacted this outcome. While no one wishes to move on from this process more than me and my family, I have a responsibility to the voters to ensure the process that I campaigned for them to participate in, many for the first time ever, was fair and impartial.”
The District Attorney’s Office is investigating more than 450 questionable mail-in ballots, some of which were dated in 2017 but submitted for the March elections. Frizell’s campaign has zeroed in on this, and says that the decision to not pursue a recount is because it won’t investigate the validity of the ballots: “Based on the Texas election code, a recount does not permit the review of rejected ballots. It also does not permit the contest of the validity of ballots. It merely recounts the ballots that previously have been counted.”
Frizell’s decision to not pursue a recount is effectively a concession. She had the support of out-of-town activist and writer Shaun King, who helped raise $100,000 in the waning days of the campaign ahead of the election. While Creuzot blasted out to a lead of more than 2,000 during early voting, Frizell got more of the vote on election day. Just not enough of it. And she hasn’t made any public statement endorsing her opponent.
