After trading leads several times, Simitian and Low each finished with 30,249 votes in the original tally, which was finalized earlier this month, shortly before the recount began. Liccardo finished with 38,489 votes, well ahead of the other two candidates.

So the two runners-up were competing for who gets to lose in a run-off election?

The attacks reached a fever pitch late last month, when a local prosecutor filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that Liccardo’s campaign illegally coordinated with “a newly formed dark money Super PAC to do his CD-16 recount bidding.”

:-/ It’s not the votes that count, but who counts the votes.