Gov. Matt Bevin's campaign requests election recanvass after coming up 5,000 votes short

Joe Sonka | Courier Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption Kentucky governors race: Gov. Matt Bevin requests a recanvass Gov. Matt Bevin holds a press conference aftger requesting a recanvass of votes in the Kentucky gubernatorial election

Alleging "a number of significant irregularities," Gov. Matt Bevin is formally requesting an official recanvass of the results of Kentucky's election for governor.

Bevin came up about 5,000 votes short in Tuesday's race against Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear.

Speaking at a 5 p.m. press conference at the Governor's Mansion in Frankfort, Bevin said he'll be "entirely comfortable" with whatever the recanvass shows as long as he's confident the results are an accurate reflection of Kentuckians' votes.

Beshear, meanwhile, was plowing ahead, announcing the leader of his transition team at his own press conference earlier Wednesday.

It's a move Bevin said is "wise."

"He should be putting together a transition team, and he should be having conversations with the expectation that if he is the person with the most votes at the end of this, that in fact he would be ready to take the responsibility of being governor," Bevin said.

But, he said, he wants to make sure things were done right.

"We know that there are reports of people having been turned away — incorrectly turned away — from various voting booths around the state," he said. "We know that in Jefferson County, there were a number of machines that did not work properly. So ballots were taken and just put in open boxes and people were told they'd be scanned in later."

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Bevin also condemned Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes for calling the election on CNN while the last votes were still being tallied Tuesday night.

"This is from a woman, who, with all due respect to her, is not exactly rock solid as it comes to following the letter of the law," Bevin said. "She's currently under investigation for misuse of voter files herself."

He also mentioned Grimes' father, Jerry Lundergan, who was convicted in September of conspiring to funnel and conceal illegal corporate contributions from Lundergan's company to Grimes' 2014 U.S. Senate campaign.

"This is a family and an office that's been very corrupt," he said. "So, for her to try to jump the gun on this and interject herself into this — a little suspect as well."

Grimes could not immediately be reached for comment following Bevin's statements.

During his Wednesday morning press conference in Louisville, Beshear said, "Last night, the election ended. It ended, and it's time to move forward with a smooth transition that we are here to do so that we can do the people's business."

My office has received a recanvass request from @GovMattBevin. The recanvass will be conducted Thursday, Nov. 14th at 9:00 a.m. pic.twitter.com/lwpCTk8ncm — Alison L. Grimes (@KySecofState) November 6, 2019

Secretary of state: Bevin should 'honor' election result and help Beshear transition

Under Kentucky law, a recanvass is a simple review of the vote totals by each county clerk — counting absentee votes and checking printouts to make sure the numbers they transmitted to the State Board of Elections were correct.

State law allows for a recanvassing if a county clerk or a county board of elections notices a discrepancy, or if a candidate makes a written request to the secretary of state by the Tuesday after an election.

After receiving Bevin's request on Wednesday, Grimes announced she would forward it to the State Board of Elections, and the county board of elections will convene on Nov. 14 at 9 a.m. to conduct the recanvass.

Grimes had said earlier she was "comfortable" in declaring Beshear the governor-elect and that Bevin should "honor" the election results.

Though candidates in certain races can request a more formal and intensive recount of election results — in which a judge takes possession of paper ballots and voting machines to conduct their own recount — state law does not allow gubernatorial candidates to do so.

Another potential option for a gubernatorial candidate to challenge results is a formal legislative election contest, in which a governor would have to call a special session of the Kentucky General Assembly.

In such a session — which Republican Senate President Robert Stivers noted on Tuesday was a possibility under the state constitution — a committee of 11 members, eight from the House and three from the Senate, would hear evidence about possible election violations and decide who is the winner. The decision would then be voted on by both chambers of the General Assembly.

This election contest provision under the Section 90 of the state constitution was last used 120 years ago.

Recount? These are the possible next steps under Kentucky election law

The last time a recanvass was conducted of a statewide election was in 2015, when Bevin defeated James Comer by just 83 votes in the Republican gubernatorial primary. After Comer requested the recanvass, the vote total came back unchanged and he conceded the race.

A high-profile recanvass was also conducted in the 1984 U.S. Senate election between Republican challenger Mitch McConnell and Democratic incumbent Walter Huddleston.

Huddleston requested the recanvass after losing to McConnell by 5,133 votes, after which McConnell's lead extended by another 676 votes.

From the 2019 primary elections to date, the Office of the Attorney General's Election Law Violations Hotline received 123 calls, spokeswoman Crystal Staley told The Courier Journal.

Deputy Attorney General J. Michael Brown said the office has no information on what irregularities Bevin are referring to.

“The most common questions received through the hotline were procedural or general legal questions," Brown said. "We have not received any information regarding the referenced irregularities."

Beshear campaign manager Eric Hyers issued a statement following Bevin's recanvassing request, saying: "Last night, the people of Kentucky elected Andy Beshear as their next governor. Today, Governor-Elect Beshear is already working on his transition so that he can best serve the people of Kentucky on day one. We hope that Matt Bevin honors the results of the recanvass, which will show he received fewer votes than Andy Beshear. As has been reported, a ‘recanvassing has never changed the result of a Kentucky election.'"

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Reporters Sarah Ladd and Ben Tobin contributed to this story.

Reach reporter Joe Sonka at jsonka@courierjournal.com or 502-582-4472 and follow him on Twitter at @joesonka. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courierjournal.com/subscribe.