Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin’s reelection campaign today formally requested a recanvass of the votes cast in last night’s gubernatorial election after vote tallies showed him roughly 5,000 votes — .3 percent of the voting electorate — behind Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear.
Kentucky’s Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes called the election for Beshear, but Bevin has refused to concede the race and wants the state to double-check the data transmitted by each county clerk in the state to the Kentucky Board of Elections.
Such “recanvass” efforts rarely produce a significantly different outcome. After the recanvass is done, it is unclear what will happen next in the razor-thin contest.
Bevin could request a full-on recount by filing with the Circuit Court in Franklin County by the Tuesday after the election, but his campaign would need to pay for the expenses associated with that effort. A judge would then conduct that recount, which would be subject to appeal in the state’s higher courts.
However, legal scholars with the University of Kentucky’s Election Law Society suggest that the provisions for election recounts don’t apply to the state’s gubernatorial contests.
Bevin could also formally contest the results of the election, though he must cite grounds for the contest — be they campaign finance violations by a rival candidate or particular issues with the voting process.
During a speech last night in which Bevin refused to concede, he cited “irregularities” in some areas of the state but did not provide specifics.
“The people of Kentucky deserve a fair and honest election,” Bevin campaign manager Davis Paine said in a statement. “With reports of irregularities, we are exercising the right to ensure that every lawful vote was counted.”
Should Bevin file to formally contest the election, what would happen next is somewhat up for debate.
Kentucky State Senate President Robert Stivers, a Republican, said today that the state’s GOP-dominated legislature could decide the contest. But the state’s process for doing that is also hazy, some political experts say, and Bevin would need to provide hard evidence of specific problems with the voting process.
Under this scenario, Bevin would need to call a special session of the Kentucky General Assembly, including eight members of the Kentucky House of Representatives and three members of the Kentucky Senate. Those representatives would consider the evidence presented and make a final determination on the outcome of the race.
The state last dealt with a contested gubernatorial election in 1899, when Republican William S. Taylor beat Democrat William Goebel by less than 400 votes. Goebel challenged the results, claiming voter fraud occurred. The Kentucky General Assembly created a committee to investigate the election results, but during tumult around the contested election, Goebel was shot by an unidentified assassin. The General Assembly committee ruled that he was the winner of the election, but he died of his wounds a few days later.
Bevin is no stranger to thin electoral margins — he won his 2015 GOP gubernatorial primary by just 83 votes over James Comer, now a state representative.
Sorting out the election has a fairly tight deadline — the Kentucky Board of Elections is set to certify the results by Nov. 25 and Kentucky’s constitution requires the next governor to be sworn in by Dec. 10.
Beshear says he’s looking ahead to his term in office.
“Whatever process that the governor chooses to go down, it’s not going to change this overall number of votes,” he told reporters at a news conference today. “We are going to take the steps to move forward to make sure that we are ready.”
This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 12, 2019.