Tom Loftus

Louisville Courier Journal

FRANKFORT, Ky. - Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign on Tuesday requested a recanvass of the vote totals in last week's Kentucky Democratic presidential primary which initially shows Sanders lost by fewer than 2,000 votes to Hillary Clinton.

Because of the request, local boards of election in each of Kentucky's 120 counties will meet at 9 a.m. (local time) on Thursday to recheck totals in the Democratic presidential primary on voting machines and report countywide totals to Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes.

"My office is notifying all county boards of elections that Sen. Sanders has requested a recanvass, and we are reminding them of the laws and procedures to be followed," Grimes said in a news release.

Unofficial results posted on the Kentucky Board of Election's website for the May 17 primary show Clinton with 212,550 votes (46.76 percent) to 210,626 votes (46.33 percent) for Sanders. (Two other candidates combined got 7,296 votes, and 24,101 Kentucky Democrats voted for "uncommitted".)

Based on the unofficial results, Clinton would get 28 delegate votes, and Sanders, 27, at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in July, said Daniel Lowry, spokesman for the Kentucky Democratic Party.

Lowry said he was not surprised by the request for a recanvass.

"It was so close, almost anyone in that position would probably ask for a recanvass," Lowry said.

In addition to the statewide recanvass of the Democratic presidential primary, the secretary of state's office reported Tuesday that there will be a recanvass in Jefferson County of results in the Republican primary for state Senate in the 33rd District. Unofficial results in that race show Republican Shenita Rickman ahead with 537 votes to 499 votes for John Yuen, who requested the recanvass. The winner of that race faces incumbent Democrat Gerald Neal, who won the Democratic primary, in November.

A recanvass is not a recount, which is a more complicated matter in which the requesting campaign must post a bond in Franklin Circuit Court which would oversee the process of recounting votes.

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