Kentucky governor recanvass: Vote totals virtually unchanged after totals rechecked
Vote totals in the Kentucky gubernatorial election were virtually unchanged after Kentucky’s 120 counties reported results from Thursday’s recanvass of the Nov. 5 contest.
The recanvass, held at the request of Gov. Matt Bevin, who was defeated by Gov.-elect Andy Beshear by 0.38 percentage points, officially began at 9 a.m. Thursday. It is the first recanvass of a statewide race in Kentucky since Bevin beat U.S. Rep. James Comer by 83 votes in the 2015 Republican gubernatorial primary.
By 3 p.m., every county reported their recanvass totals and only 1 vote had changed. Write-in candidate Blackii Whyte went from zero votes to one vote in Casey County. No votes changed in the state’s two most populous counties — Jefferson and Fayette.
Election experts had said heading into Thursday’s recanvass that vote totals were unlikely to change much, pointing out that the process — in which county clerks recheck the vote totals from each voting machine and absentee ballots — rarely impacts the outcome of an election.
The recanvass compares vote totals to the official election results that were submitted to the State Board of Elections last Friday, not the unofficial election results that were posted on the State Board of Elections website on election night.
Some of Thursday’s vote totals were different from the unofficial results displayed on election night. For example, about 400 absentee votes in Anderson County weren’t uploaded to the website on election night. Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes attributed those differences to “human error.”
The recanvass is unlikely to answer any questions Bevin, a Republican, has raised about “irregularities” in the election. Bevin has provided no evidence of his claims, including that thousands of absentee ballots were illegally counted.
If the recanvass confirms the results of last week’s election, Bevin is not required to concede, but he would have only one legal option remaining to challenge the results: filing an election contest with the Kentucky General Assembly.
The legislature would form a committee of 11 lawmakers (eight from the House of Representatives, three from the Senate) that would meet to determine if there were any irregularities in the election. They would then make a recommendation to a joint session of the General Assembly, which would decide the matter.
Republican lawmakers have said they do not want Bevin to contest the election unless he can provide substantial proof that vote fraud occurred. Meanwhile, the Republican Party of Kentucky has submitted detailed requests under the Open Records Act to every county clerk in the state, seeking voluminous documents related to election results.
In a news conference last Wednesday, Bevin also called into question the impartiality of Grimes, a Democrat, who’s office is being investigated by several state agencies.
Grimes pre-empted that criticism Thursday by inviting her successor, Republican Michael Adams. The two, who previously served together on the State Board of Elections, said they wanted to make sure the recanvass was bipartisan and fair.
Grimes said she invited Adams to the recanvass in her office “to make sure he doesn’t encounter his first recanvass in a presidential election year.” Americans vote next year for president.
Thursday’s recanvass was the 24th her office has conducted, Grimes said.
Adams said he was “very satisfied” with the recanvass so far.
“I want to reassure all Kentuckians that this is being done by the book. I especially want to reassure support for the governor,” Adams said. “I’m one of them and this is being done correctly and by the book.”
This story was originally published November 14, 2019 at 10:44 AM.
