From Missouri Digital News: https://mdn.org

JEFFERSON CITY - Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., won Missouri by 3,632 votes according to the Secretary of State's office.

The difference between votes gained by McCain and president-elect Barack Obama is .12 percent of the state's almost 2.9 million votes. Because the race was so close, the Obama campaign has the option of asking for a recount once the results are certified.

Laura Egerdal, spokeswoman for the Secretary of State's office said all ballots have now been counted but Secretary of State Robin Carnahan has until Dec. 9 to officially certify the results. Missouri is the last state to be decided in the 2008 election.

"The only thing that's different about Missouri is that we had a very very close election." Egerdal said. "Most state's have a certification process just like this where everything gets verified except normally things are not this close on election night so it's pretty obvious what is going to happen but in Missouri it was close enough that we had to wait for this verification process, which we do every year to make sure these conditional ballots weren't going to affect the outcome."

The difference between McCain and Obama was less than the number of provisional ballots, so the final results could not be announced until after the ballots were counted.

Egerdal said in the past the margin in Missouri on election night has been so great that the provisional ballots did not affect the final outcome.

McCain's win over Obama is the first time Missouri has not chosen the president since 1956 when the state went to Democrat Adlai Stevenson over Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

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Missouri Digital News is produced by Missouri Digital News, Inc. -- a non profit organization of current and former journalists.