Republican state Rep. Elijah Pierick’s reelection victory in House District 39 was powered by in-person voters, an automatic recount shows.

Pierick won by 20 votes over Democratic challenger Corey Rosenlee after an election night count of mail ballots had given Rosenlee a 331-vote lead.

Pierick received 4,706 votes to 4,686 for Rosenlee in the district that includes Royal Kunia, Village Park, Honouliuli, Hoopili and a portion of Waipahu.

The recount, which did not change any vote totals, showed that Pierick dominated in-person balloting by a 351-vote margin, 559 to 208.

The vast majority of voters in the district used mail ballots, and Rosenlee won those by a 51.9% to 48% margin. But that was overcome by Pierick’s 72.8% to 27.12% margin among in-person voters.

Pierick’s victory brings the number of GOP-controlled seats in the 51-member House to nine. That’s the most Republican House seats in at least a decade.

State law was changed this year to decrease the number of automatic recounts, and as a result at least two tight general election contests that would have previously qualified for recounts did not.

The law now requires them in races where the difference between votes is “equal to or less than one hundred votes or one-quarter of one percent of the total number of votes cast for the contest, whichever is lesser.”

Previously, the last part of that section was: “whichever is greater.” That had sometimes resulted in automatic recounts in low-turnout primaries that were not all that close even though there was less than a 100-vote difference.

State Elections Chief Scott Nago submitted testimony in support of the law change in which he noted that an automatic recount had been required in a 2020 primary even though the winner got 53.3% of the vote to 46.7% for the loser.

The change was also supported by the League of Women Voters of Hawaii, which testified, “the recount threshold should be strict so that it correctly identifies races that are genuinely close.”

At least two races on Hawaii’s Nov. 5 ballot were close enough that they would have qualified for automatic recounts before the law change.

In the South Maui County Council race, Tom Cook defeated Kelly King by just 117 votes, 41.6% to 41.4%.

And in the House District 32 race, Republican challenger Garner Shimizu defeated Democratic incumbent Micah Aiu by 76 votes, but the law’s “one quarter of one percent” of all ballots cast in the race came out to 24 votes — meaning the difference between the two needed to be less than that.

District 32 includes Fort Shafter, Moanalua, Aliamanu, Foster Village and portions of Aiea and Halawa.