One of the closest watched House races is in California's 45th District. Is it headed for a recount?

Update: Democrat Derek Tran is now 519 votes ahead of GOP Rep. Michelle Steel in latest ballot release

The race for the 45th Congressional District is coming down to the wire, raising the question of whether there is going to be a recount.

A day after the election, Republican Rep. Michelle Steel — a two-term incumbent for the House seat — was a comfortable 4.2 percentage points ahead of Democratic challenger Derek Tran.

But since then, the race has steadily tightened with Tran, a lawyer and first-time candidate for public office, taking the lead by 36 votes last Friday. He now leads by 480 votes out of more than 300,000 cast.

Several thousand votes remain to be counted.

National party leaders are closely watching the race because Republicans have only a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives. If the margin of victory either way is a couple of hundred votes, it seems reasonable that the loser would ask for a recount.

Here’s how that would work.

What are the rules of a recount?

There is no automatic recount in California, but once the counting is completed, anyone can ask for a recount.

The request must be filed with the Registrar of Voters within five calendar days after the election is officially certified, and the request must state on who's behalf it was made.

Here’s the catch: The person requesting the recount must pay for it. The cost of a recount can run upwards of $500,000, and the person has to pay up front for each day of counting. If the results change, then the money is refunded.

One other thing: The person requesting the recount has the option of specifying the counting method to be used (electronic, manual or both). A hand count would cost more.

Some other notables surrounding any recount, according to the Orange County Registrar of Voters:

• A recount is open to the public, meaning people can observe the counting;
• A recount must start no later than seven days following the receipt of the request and shall be continued daily, except for weekends and holidays, and for not less than six hours each day until completed;
• The results of a recount are declared null and void unless every vote in every precinct in which the contest appeared is recounted.
  

What is ballot curing?

Right now, the votes that remain to be counted in the 45th Congressional District include those of voters whose signature on their mail-in ballot did not match the one on file. Officials in Orange and Los Angeles counties are reaching out to those voters by mail and by telephone, if a phone number is on file.

Officials are asking voters to provide a new signature. It's called “curing” the ballot.

Congressional District 45 straddles Orange and L.A. counties, so the registrar of voters from each county is involved in the process. The district is mostly in Orange County, but includes parts of Southeast L.A.

Officials are also still counting conditional and provisional ballots. Conditional ballots are those of people who registered to vote on election day. Provisional ballots are those of people who were registered but whose names were not on the voter list at their polling place.

County election officials have until Dec. 5 to certify election results, and the state has until Dec. 13 to certify the statewide vote. This includes a mandatory audit that requires hand-counting all of the ballots at 1% of precincts.

What are the campaigns saying about a possible recount?

We asked and so far, the campaigns aren't saying much about the possibility of a recount.

LAist has learned that Tran has been soliciting donations to legal funds from his supporters. He also traveled to Washington, D.C. earlier this week for freshmen representatives' orientation even though the vote count is still underway.

Tran is a lawyer and son of Vietnamese refugees. If he wins the election, he would be the first Vietnamese-American to represent the 45th District, which includes Little Saigon. He came in second in the primary by beating the third-place finisher by just 367 votes.

In a statement issued Monday, Tran’s campaign manager said the campaign is “confident that as the remaining vote-by-mail, provisional and conditional ballots are tallied, Derek Tran will emerge victorious.”

Steel’s campaign has not responded this week to calls from LAist, seeking comment about the possibility of a recount went unreturned.

Steel is a Korean-American who first won the 45th Congressional District seat in 2020. She is also a former member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors and former member of California State Board of Equalization.

An LAist investigation found that as a member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors in early 2020, Steel awarded a vendor $1.2 million in taxpayer funds for pandemic meals at the same time the vendor was printing her campaign mailers.

A campaign spokesperson for Steel previously told LAist that the congressperson "stands by the work" and that the meals funding also helped restaurants.