I’m glad that Thad is so shocked. I’m sure that he’ll be even more shocked to read what Orange County Superior Court Judge Michael Brenner was quoted by the LA Times this morning as saying about California’s election code, as applied to this case:

But Brenner noted how one could find contradictions in portions of the state’s massive election code that addressed the issues raised.

“There is a conflict here, at least if you read them on the surface,” Brenner said Friday before offering his reasoning on how they should be read.

In the end, after the court reviewed the disputed ballots, Janet Nguyen was declared the victor by only a three-vote margin. Brenner’s ruling, if it withstands appeal, may become an important precedent in California:

Brenner also ruled that state law allows the person seeking and paying for the recount to choose the method by which votes are counted.

It was, he said, “perfectly reasonable” for Janet Nguyen to ask for about 35,000 paper absentee ballots to be checked by hand to contest ones that weren’t filled out properly and then ask to have about 10,000 electronic votes recounted the way they were on election night — by machine.

“The evidence in this case found no complaints about the [performance of election] machines,” Brenner said, adding that recounting the paper audit “probably wouldn’t show a great deal anyway.”

So that’ll shock Thad even more.