Recount in Congressional race makes progress

(WGME) -- The recount for Maine's Second Congressional District continues, and Maine's Secretary of State says officials are making good progress,

Secretary Matthew Dunlap says they've counted between 20,000 and 25,000 ballots a day.

He says if they can stay at that pace, the counting should be completed before the first or second week of January.

Dunlap says he doesn't expect much difference in the outcome, and that a hand recount does add some clarity to what happened on election night.

"But often times voters will do curious things with their ballots, like they'll underline a name or they'll put an X through something. They'll use check marks and the tabulating machines can read those, but sometimes there are things the tabulators can't discern that the human eye can. So that's the value of having a hand re-count," Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap said.

Democratic Representative-elect Jared Golden won by a little more than 4000 votes.

Poliquin requested a recount calling Maine's new ranked choice voting system unconstitutional.

He's also asked a federal judge to either declare him the winner or order a second election.