Kentucky gov. seeks vote recount
Democrat named race winner begins preparing to take office
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Republican Gov. Matt Bevin asked Wednesday for a recanvass of Kentucky election results that showed him more than 5,000 votes behind Democrat Andy Beshear, who discounted the challenge and began preparing to take office.
Beshear, the state’s attorney general, said he’s confident in the election outcome, saying any review would show he won the hard-fought campaign.
“Whatever process that the governor chooses to go down, it’s not going to change this overall number of votes,” Beshear said at a news conference. “We are going to take the steps to move forward to make sure that we are ready … on the day that we’re inaugurated.”
With 100% of precincts reporting, Beshear led by a little over 5,000 votes out of more than 1.4 million counted, or a margin of less than 0.4 percentage points. That’s inside the margin that would trigger a recount in most states and it’s AP policy not to call races that could go to a recount. Although there is no mandatory recount law in Kentucky, the AP is applying that same standard here.
Bevin’s campaign manager Davis Paine said Kentuckians deserve a “fair and honest election,” adding that “we are exercising the right to ensure that every lawful vote was counted.”
Kentucky’s secretary of state, Alison Lundergan Grimes, scheduled the recanvass for Nov. 14. A recanvass is a check of the vote count to ensure the results were added correctly.
Beshear’s campaign responded with a statement repeating that he hopes Bevin honors the election results. The campaign noted that a recanvass has never led to a reversal of an election result in Kentucky.
Kentucky inaugurates its governors in the December following an election. Beshear — the son of Kentucky’s last Democratic governor, Steve Beshear — named his top deputy in the attorney general’s office, J. Michael Brown, to lead his transition team.
Beshear said his budget proposal in early 2020 will reflect his priorities of public education, health care and infrastructure.
He promised a quick followthrough on some key campaign pledges. Those include appointing new members to the Kentucky Board of Education, rescinding Bevin’s proposed work-related requirements for some Medicaid recipients and restoring voting rights for more than 140,000 nonviolent felons who completed their sentences.
Kentucky has no mandatory recount law. If Bevin decides to take that step, he would need a court’s approval for a recount.