Recount Sets Two-candidate Runoff For Louisiana Senate Seat

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A vote recount has pushed one Republican candidate out of the runoff for a Louisiana state Senate seat.

News media report that a hand count of paper absentee and early voting ballots Thursday determined Franklin Foil narrowly edged Steve Carter out of the second-place spot. Both men are Republican state representatives.

Foil will face Democrat Beverly Brooks Thompson in the Nov. 16 runoff for the Baton Rouge-based seat.

Foil initially had an eight-vote lead over Carter in Saturday's primary. But the secretary of state's office said Foil's lead evaporated after local election officials found problems with the scanning of mail-in absentee ballots and rescanned them.

The two men were declared tied for second-place, raising the possibility of an unusual, three-person runoff.

Foil requested Thursday's recount, done by local election officials.