To the extent that the recount is conducted by county commissions, that gives me little solace, since Cameron and Nueces Counties are both controlled by Democrats (at least as of today). I don’t think that the Secretary of State or whoever it is that certifies election results in TX would declare Farenthold the winner if Nueces and Cameron Counties “discover” enough votes for Ortiz to give him the lead.
Wrong, Republicans took over the County Judgeship in Nueces county in 2007 after the 2006 elections, and they took majority control of the county commission in 2009 after the 2008 elections. The Republican County Judge just got reelected with 62% of the vote on November 3. Judge Neal was such a strong candidate that the DemocRATS only fielded weak candidates for the office. The woman who got the DemocRAT nomination was in her early thirties and never has held elective office before. She also has four or five children all of them be different fathers, none of whom she married.
I was one of the recount workers in Nueces county that finished recounting the election yesterday. The recount result was "identical" to the canvass. We manually sorted (by precinct) and recounted all the paper absentee and emergency ballot that were counted by machine earlier. Not only was the overall count identical, but the precinct by precinct counts were the same.