CINCINNATI (WKRC) - Citing what he calls "irregularities" in the election, Kentucky's Governor Matt Bevin is requesting a recanvass of the vote.
This comes after Democratic challenger Andy Beshear narrowly beat governor Bevin in Tuesday’s gubernatorial election.
It was a close one, The un-official numbers from the Kentucky State Board of Elections shows Beshear beating Bevin, 709,577 to 704,388 – a difference of just 5,189 votes, or .4% -- after 1.4 million votes cast.
It’s too close for Governor Bevin to go quietly into the night.
“We know there have been thousands of absentee ballots that were illegally counted. That is known. This again is something that is being looked into. We know there have been reports of people being turned away -- illegally turned away from various voting booths around the state," said Bevin at a press conference on Wednesday. He did not take or answer any questions at the press conference after he spoke.
The Wednesday afternoon news conference came just a couple of hours after Bevin sent a letter to the Kentucky Secretary of State, requesting a recanvass of the vote.
It's the first option for Bevin under Kentucky law, and very common in a race this close. It basically requires precincts to check their voting machines to make sure they're functioning properly, and rechecking machine results. If that doesn't satisfy Bevin, he can ask for a recount, which would require literally recounting the paper ballots, and combining the results with the machine votes.
The last option would be contesting the election, which would be highly unusual -- and would put the election in the hands of the general assembly.
“There would be something like campaign finance issues,” says NKU Political Science professor Ryan Salzman. He says there needs to be hard evidence of a major malfeasance to contest an election. “Something that would make it okay to discount all of the votes that have been cast. 1.4 million votes cast. It’s going to take something pretty big to have people say, ‘We’re just not going to count those now.‘“
Some Bevin supporters say their candidate should take it as far as he can.
“I think there possibly could have been some irregularities. I don’t know necessarily what those could be but where I stand I think there may have been some questionable things that of happened,” says Kevin Grannen, from NKU Student Republicans.
Gov-Elect Andy Beshear held a news conference as well Wednesday.
“This race, this outcome, isn’t going to change it’s over,” he said. “It ended last night and we’re going to make sure that we make this transition as smooth this weekend because the people of this Commonwealth Avenue needs and they need their next governor to be ready and to be addressing those needs immediately. I’m done with running for office it’s now time to govern.”
Beshear's campaign sent out a press release Wednesday afternoon, following Bevin’s letter requesting a recanvass. It stated: "We hope that Matt Bevin honors the results of the recanvass,” and, "A recanvassing has never changed the result of a Kentucky election."
Bevin has until Tuesday, November 12 to file for a recount, or to contest the election. Beshear is already naming members of his transition team. He is scheduled to be sworn-in as governor on December 10th.
