As election reversals go, the one that took place Monday was a whopper.

Following last Tuesday’s Democratic primary election in Nashua’s Ward 8, it appeared that former Aldermanic President Carl Andrade had a three-vote victory over Latha Mangipudi for the right to face Republican Paul Silva in the general election to fill a seat in the New Hampshire House.

Mangipudi, a former member of the city’s board of education, asked for a recount, which was conducted Monday at Secretary of State Bill Gardner’s office in Concord.

It’s fair to say that nobody saw this one coming.

When the recount was done, Mangipudi had prevailed in a stunning reversal. She went from the short end of a 170-167 vote last week, to a 191-146 triumph and her party’s nomination.

Workers counted the ballots three times at the polls. The problem was, when they stacked the ballots, they put one of Mangipudi’s 25-ballot stacks into the Andrade pile and he received credit for votes that were cast for her.

Before anybody starts thinking of Nashua as Chicago East, let’s call this what it appears to be – an honest error, albeit one that almost didn’t get corrected after Mangipudi initially said she wouldn’t ask for a recount.

“This shows you once again why in any close race like this one, you always want to see the ballots,” said State Rep. Ken Gidge, D-Nashua. “It’s hard to believe there could be a swing of 24 votes, but mistakes happen.”

We’re sure election officials feel bad about it and will be super careful in future elections, as they should and as they have been in the past. But there’s nothing to suggest it was anything but a mistake, pure and simple.

Still, with fewer than 350 votes cast – we wonder if the small turnout was a factor in the sloppiness that resulted – there’s no reason election officials should have gotten it wrong. None whatsoever.

Then again, we’re sure they know that.

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