Last month, MuckRock began collecting policies on election recounts from all fifty states, and we asked that you help out by suggesting your county or town to add to our collection.

Beginning at the top - with the Attorneys General for each - we’ve begun to receive responses with direction to other offices - the Secretaries of State or the Election Divisions, primarily, or county administrators in some cases - or with links to the state statutes and guidelines that some places work to ensure are already available to the public. Among them was Indiana, who pointed up to their 2016 Manual for Election Administrators.

Among the laws included is a so-called “sore loser” law, one of over three dozen in the county, which prevents those who lose a primary from then participating in a general election as part of another party.

It also, of course, included guidelines to Indiana’s recount process, which requires that requests for a recount be made by an affected candidate within 14 days of the election or by his or her political party chairperson within 17 days of the election. The associated fees, which must be covered by the petitioner of the recount, are dependent on the percentage by which the loss occurred, but if the recount overturns the previous decision, the money is refunded.

Take a look at the full manual below

And then help us find out how recounts are conducted near you - for your local sheriff, school board, city councillors, or whatever election matters to you - by letting us know via the form below.

Image by Jonathunder via Wikimedia Commons and is licensed under CC BY 3.0