Twenty votes separate the candidates in one Massachusetts state Senate race. Fourteen votes separate them in a state House race. The deadline to ask for a recount in either one is 3 p.m. Thursday, September 3.
Four races from Tuesday’s primary have no winner. Two of them are inside the margin that permits a recount at all, and in one the lead has already changed hands twice.
Here is the state of each, and the rules that govern what happens next.
First, the rule almost everyone is getting wrong
Massachusetts has no automatic recount.
This has been reported incorrectly in coverage of these races, and the error matters. A close margin does not trigger anything on its own. It only creates eligibility. A candidate, or a group of voters, must affirmatively petition, gather signatures, and file by a deadline. If nobody files, the result stands however close it is.
The threshold for a district-wide recount is a margin of less than 0.5 percent of the total votes cast in that race, based on unofficial returns.
The deadlines for this primary
The schedule for the September 1, 2026 state primary is set by Chapter 34 of the Acts of 2025:
- Thursday, September 3, 3:00 p.m. Deadline to file district-wide recount petitions with local election officials.
- Thursday, September 3, 5:00 p.m. Deadline to file precinct or ward level recount petitions with local election officials.
- Friday, September 4, 12:00 p.m. Local officials certify the signatures.
- Friday, September 4, 5:00 p.m. Deadline to file the certified petitions with the Elections Division.
- Friday, September 11, 5:00 p.m. All recounts must be complete.
That is a compressed calendar. A candidate deciding whether to contest a 20-vote margin has roughly one business day to decide, collect signatures, and file.
The four unresolved races
1. State Senate, Suffolk and Middlesex: 20 votes
This is the most consequential unresolved result in Massachusetts.
| Candidate | Votes | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Daniel Lander | 12,088 | 50.04% |
| William Brownsberger (incumbent) | 12,068 | 49.96% |
| Total | 24,156 |
Margin: 20 votes, 0.083 percent. All 59 precincts have reported. No outlet has called it.
Brownsberger is the Senate President Pro Tempore, the chamber’s second-ranking member, and has held the seat since 2012. The lead has moved twice: he was up 61 votes at dawn Wednesday, and behind by 20 by the afternoon.
The geography explains the closeness. Lander led Cambridge and Watertown and finished roughly 1,700 votes ahead in the Boston portion of the district. Brownsberger led Belmont, his home town, by roughly 2,200.
This race is comfortably inside the 0.5 percent threshold. Neither candidate has been reported as having filed for a recount or announced an intention to.
Lander’s campaign said the primary had “sent a very loud message to leadership on Beacon Hill.” Lander himself said: “This election is incredibly close, and we will not know the results until every last vote is counted.” Brownsberger has not conceded.
2. State House, 9th Bristol: 14 votes
| Candidate | Votes | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Edward Pacheco | 2,469 | 50.14% |
| Stephen Medeiros | 2,455 | 49.86% |
Margin: 14 votes, 0.284 percent. All 12 precincts reporting. Uncalled, and inside the recount threshold.
In raw votes this is the closest race in the Commonwealth. In a contest this small, a recount can turn on a handful of ballots where voter intent is disputed, which is exactly what a recount board exists to decide.
3. State House, 1st Franklin: 73 votes
| Candidate | Votes | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Lora Wondolowski | 3,963 | 50.46% |
| Corinne Coryat | 3,890 | 49.54% |
Margin: 0.930 percent. Twenty-four of 26 precincts reporting, which is why this one remains uncalled: there are still ballots to count.
The lead here has flipped. Coryat led 54.2 to 45.8 when roughly 37 percent had been counted. The margin currently sits above the 0.5 percent recount line, but with two precincts outstanding it could move in either direction.
4. State Senate, 1st Bristol and Plymouth, Republican: 84 votes
| Candidate | Votes | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Gabriel Amaral | 3,558 | 50.60% |
| Manny Silva | 3,474 | 49.40% |
Margin: 1.195 percent. All 49 precincts reporting, outside recount range, and still uncalled. The reported data on this race has not been updated since early Wednesday morning.
Two races that are close but settled
Both are worth naming because their margins invite confusion.
State Senate, Norfolk and Suffolk. Persis Yu unseated Michael Rush, the Senate Majority Whip and an eight-term incumbent, 15,609 to 14,956. That is 653 votes, 2.14 percent. Called, and outside recount range.
State House, 25th Middlesex. Marjorie Decker held off Evan MacKay 4,104 to 3,599, a margin of 505 votes and 6.56 percent. This is a rematch of 2024, when MacKay lost by 41 votes and the race went to a recount. This margin is more than twelve times the recount threshold. There will be no repeat.
What a recount actually is
A recount is not a new election and not a court proceeding. Ballots are recounted by a recount board in the presence of the candidates or their designated observers, who may object to individual ballots.
The core question in most disputed ballots is voter intent. A ballot marked with a check rather than a filled oval, marked outside the oval, or marked for one candidate with the name of another written in, all present intent questions that a machine count resolves one way and a human count may resolve differently.
That is why hand recounts of very close races sometimes move the number by more than people expect, and why a 14-vote margin across 12 precincts is genuinely live in a way that a 653-vote margin is not.
The board’s decision can be challenged in Superior Court, but the recount itself is an administrative process run by local election officials under the supervision of the Elections Division.
Nothing is official yet
Every figure above is unofficial. No certified result exists for any race on the September 1 ballot. The Secretary of the Commonwealth’s certified results archive at electionstats.state.ma.us contains no data for this election, and the most recent election in it is from March 2026.
Certification follows the recount period. Until then, these numbers can move, and in the four races above they still are moving.
Common questions
Does Massachusetts have automatic recounts?
No. A close margin creates eligibility to request a recount, nothing more. A candidate or group of voters must file a petition with local election officials by the statutory deadline. If nobody petitions, the result stands.
What margin qualifies for a recount?
For a district-wide recount, the unofficial margin must be less than 0.5 percent of the total votes cast in that race. Precinct and ward level recounts have their own petition process.
What is the deadline to request a recount for this primary?
District-wide petitions are due to local election officials by 3 p.m. Thursday, September 3, 2026, certified by noon Friday, September 4, and filed with the Elections Division by 5 p.m. that day. All recounts must be complete by 5 p.m. Friday, September 11.
Which races are still undecided?
Four. The Suffolk and Middlesex state Senate seat, 20 votes; the 9th Bristol House seat, 14 votes; the 1st Franklin House seat, 73 votes with two precincts outstanding; and the 1st Bristol and Plymouth Republican Senate primary, 84 votes.
Can a recount change a result?
It can. Recount boards resolve questions of voter intent on individual ballots that machine tabulation decides mechanically, and in races decided by double-digit vote margins that difference is meaningful.
Vote totals from Associated Press tabulation as of the afternoon of September 2, 2026. All results are unofficial. Recount deadlines from the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s published 2026 State Primary Recount Deadlines and Chapter 34 of the Acts of 2025. No candidate has been reported by a named source as having filed for a recount as of publication. General information, not legal advice.