The House's master — Rep. Will Hartnett, R-Dallas, says Donna Howard, D-Austin, beat Dan Neil, R-Austin, by four votes.Hartnett's recommendation goes next to the select committee chaired by Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, and then on to the full House, which has the final say on who won the election. Keeping score by rounds? It was Howard by 16 votes on Election Day, by 12 votes in the recount, and now by four. As they say at the carnival, it only takes one ticket to win. Here's the statement from Hartnett's office (the full report is available here):

"After a thorough review of the numerous challenged ballots, I have concluded that Donna Howard won the House District 48 election by 4 votes. "Voters who had moved out of Travis County without changing their voter registration and returned to vote in their former precinct caused a net subtraction of 7 votes from Ms. Howard's margin of victory. Counting 4 unopened ballots subtracted a net of 2 votes from Ms. Howard's margin. "Striking 1 vote by a voter who was not effectively registered added 1 vote to her margin. "I have seen no evidence of any voter fraud or of any substantial errors by any Travis County election official. My report will be released later this evening." Will Hartnett Master of Discovery

And here's the reaction from Joe Nixon, the former state representative who is now Neil's lawyer:

"We have received the Master’s recommendation, and we are in the process of reviewing it. We have completed step one of this process, and we intend to take our case to the committee. We believe the evidence presented in recent hearings is worthy of a different finding, and we are confident the committee will agree. This is an excellent ruling to take to the committee. It shows that there are a number of unresolved issues that need to be decided before anyone can be declared the winner of this election."

Howard's reaction:

"The Master of Discovery's recommendations are the culmination of a tremendous amount of hard work and careful deliberation. They reconfirm that this election was conducted fairly and professionally, and that I was chosen by the voters to represent House District 48. The presentation and thorough review of the evidence was a critical part of determining the true winner of this election, and I want to thank everyone who gave up their time to participate in last week's hearings."

Gov. Rick Perry wants to keep the small business tax break approved by lawmakers two years ago and that, without legislative action, will require more businesses to pay franchise taxes next year. The 2009 legislation increased (to $1 million) the amount of money a company can bring in before it's subject to the state's corporate franchise tax, and was touted at the time a way to keep most of the tax income coming in while freeing thousands of businesses from writing checks. The big taxpayers who pay most of the taxes were still paying, but an estimated 39,000 taxpayers were set free, at a cost of $172 million. The original exemption was $300,000, meaning a company could have gross revenues of that amount and still not owe the tax. The legislation passed two years ago raised that to $1 million for the first two years, but would drop it back down to $600,000 next year unless lawmakers act. The number of businesses that would be affected wasn't immediately available, nor was the amount of money that's in play.

This is the Texas Legislative Council's first run at the state's population by congressional district. A quirk in the numbers: The state currently has 32 congressional seats but is getting four more; this map is based on the ideal populations for 36 districts, which is 698,488.

This is the Texas Legislative Council's first run at the state's population by state Senate district. The ideal size for each of the 31 districts is 811,147.

This is the Texas Legislative Council's first run at the state's population by state House district. The ideal size for each of the 31 districts is 167,637.

This is the Texas Legislative Council's first run at the state's population by State Board of Education district. The ideal size for each of the 15 districts is 1,676,371.