On November 3, voters in Colorado's 8th Congressional District fired Gabe Evans. It wasn't close.
Democrat Manny Rutinel won with 158,784 votes, or 55%, according to NBC News' count with about 95% of the expected vote in. Evans got 116,602 votes, or 41%. That's a gap of more than 42,000 votes, and it was already nearly 33,000 in the election-night count The Center Square reported. The Associated Press called the race for Rutinel at 9:49 p.m. on election night.
Evans still won't admit he lost. He refused to concede, and he told Colorado Public Radio that he wants a recount, The Center Square reported.
A recount can't close a 42,000-vote gap
Colorado law spells out when a race is close enough to count again. A recount happens on its own when the gap between the top two candidates is one-half of one percent of the winner's votes or less.
Half a percent of Rutinel's 158,784 votes is about 794 votes. Evans is more than 41,000 votes past that line.
Recounts in close races are fair and normal.
Colorado does let a losing candidate ask for a recount when the law doesn't require one. But the candidate who asks has to pay for it, and the request can't be filed until at least ten days after the election.
"Fight till the very end"
Evans set the tone on election night. At his watch party in Brighton, around 9 p.m., he told supporters, "We are going to fight till the very end, until every single vote is counted," according to The Colorado Sun. He also said, "We know that there's some ground to make up." By then he trailed by more than 10 percentage points.
Colorado counts every ballot. That isn't in question. What Evans is questioning is whether the voters' answer counts.
Compare that with another Colorado Republican who lost the same night by even more. Mark Baisley lost the U.S. Senate race to John Hickenlooper by about 25 points, and he called Hickenlooper to concede on election night.
Rutinel took the other road too. "To everyone who voted for Congressman Evans: I will be your congressman as much as anyone's," he said in a statement.
He spent his term making it harder for other people to vote
Evans has been eager to question how other people vote. He was one of 217 House Republicans, every Republican who voted, who voted in February to pass the SAVE America Act. That bill would make Americans show proof of citizenship, like a passport or birth certificate, to register to vote, and it adds a photo ID rule.
Then on September 1, with groceries topping Americans' list of money worries, he voted for a House resolution condemning socialism whose one real demand was passing the SAVE America Act. When Kansas tried a proof-of-citizenship rule, 31,089 people couldn't register. The state found 39 confirmed noncitizens over the 14 years before that.
So Evans voted to make eligible Americans prove they're allowed to vote. Now that his own voters have spoken, he wants their ballots counted again.
What the record shows
Gabe Evans lost Colorado's 8th District by more than 42,000 votes, 55% to 41%, in a race the AP called on election night. Colorado recounts a race automatically only when the gap is under 800 votes. Evans refused to concede and told Colorado Public Radio he wants a recount anyway. Earlier this year, he voted to pass the SAVE America Act, which would make Americans show proof of citizenship to register to vote.
