The Anne Arundel County Board of Elections will begin today to recount absentee and provisional ballots cast in the House District 31 election race in which Republican Del. Donald H. Dwyer Jr. defeated Democratic Del. Joan Cadden by 28 votes.

Cadden filed a request yesterday with the Maryland State Board of Elections asking for a recount after absentee and provisional ballots cost her the 719-vote lead she had over Dwyer on election night.

"It was statistically impossible," Cadden said yesterday.

The recount sets up another face-off between Dwyer, a conservative who is leading an effort to ban same-sex marriage in Maryland, and Cadden, a moderate Democrat who embraces "smart growth." Dwyer has said his "number one priority was to take Delegate Cadden's seat from her."

The two candidates did not run directly against each other but were among a field competing for three seats in District 31 of the House of Delegates. Cadden's third-place lead dwindled to 30 votes after most of the absentee ballots had been counted and then became an 11-vote deficit after the provisional ballots were tallied, with the final absentees giving Dwyer his 28-vote victory.

Cadden said she was "very optimistic" about her chances in the recount. "I feel very comfortable in doing the recount, and as I've said, I've been encouraged by nearly everybody in the state," she said.

The deadline for candidates to request a recount was yesterday, three days after the state board certified election results.

Andrew D. Levy, an attorney for Cadden, said his appeal specifically asked that the absentee and provisional ballots be "hand read and counted."

Anne Arundel Election Director Barbara L. Fisher said the manual count will involve slightly more than 3,300 ballots and will be conducted by a four-member team: one individual calling out the votes, another checking to make sure the vote was called correctly, and two others separately tallying the votes -- work that will be cross-checked.

Fisher projected that the recount could be completed by tomorrow.

Barbara Samorajczyk, an Anne Arundel Democrat who lost to Republican Ronald A. George by 53 votes in House District 30, conceded this month, saying she did not think there was a "meaningful way to do a recount" with electronic voting machines.