Because of five votes, the race to become the next dis­trict attor­ney in the state’s largest judi­cial dis­trict will go to a manda­to­ry recount.

John Kell­ner, a Repub­li­can, leads Demo­c­rat Amy Pad­den by a mar­gin of 1,433 votes in a race that 573,359 peo­ple vot­ed in. But that’s not a big enough lead to avoid a recount man­dat­ed by Col­orado law.

State statute man­dates an auto­mat­ic recount in any race where the lead­ing candidate’s mar­gin is less than or equal to half of 1% of the total votes that can­di­date received. Under that law, Kell­ner need­ed 1,438 more votes than Pad­den to avoid a manda­to­ry recount — five more votes than his cur­rent margin.

The recount will begin Tues­day and must be fin­ished by Dec. 8, accord­ing to the Sec­re­tary of State’s elec­tion cal­en­dar.

Kell­ner on Nov. 14 claimed vic­to­ry in a post to his cam­paign Face­book page, though he acknowl­edged the race could still go to a recount.

“But I’m very con­fi­dent in the coun­ty clerks of Ara­pa­hoe, Dou­glas, Elbert and Lin­coln Coun­ties and their hard work to count every vote and report accu­rate results,” he wrote. “So now I’m going to turn my focus to serv­ing the Peo­ple of the 18th Judi­cial Dis­trict and keep­ing our com­mu­ni­ty safe. Thank you!”

Pad­den has not con­ced­ed the race and pre­vi­ous­ly said she would wait for the recount process to end.

“We have over­come all odds to have been in the lead for the 46 hours of returns and to cur­rent­ly be with­in frac­tions of a per­cent­age point of win­ning this his­tor­i­cal­ly Repub­li­can seat, and we are com­mit­ted to ensur­ing that every vote is accu­rate­ly count­ed in the recount,” Pad­den said Wednes­day in a news release. “A manda­to­ry recount (like bal­lot cur­ing) is a part of this process estab­lished by the leg­is­la­ture in close races, such as this one, to make sure that every vote counts.”

The 18th Judi­cial Dis­trict Attorney’s seat has been held by Repub­li­cans since 1969. The dis­trict — which includes Ara­pa­hoe, Dou­glas, Elbert and Lin­coln coun­ties — will be bro­ken into two dis­tricts in 2024. The 18th Judi­cial Dis­trict will be com­prised of sole­ly Ara­pa­hoe Coun­ty and the oth­er three will become the state’s 23rd Judi­cial District.