Director of Content and Engagement, Commonwealth Policy Center

In the early portion of this past week, KY Secretary of State Allison Lundergan Grimes initiated a recanvass of the ballots in the 2019 General Election at the request of Gov. Bevin. The initial election results showed Attorney General Andy Beshear defeated Gov. Bevin by 5,136 votes or .3%. The recanvass revealed no change in the vote totals for the two candidates in question and only one missed vote, a vote for a write-in candidate. After the results of the recanvass were revealed, Gov. Bevin held a press conference and announced that he would not be contesting the results and that he would concede the race to Governor-Elect Beshear. Beshear later tweeted out that Gov. Bevin’s team has already started working toward a smooth transition. Many have called Gov. Bevin’s pursuit of a recanvass merely an attempt to overturn the results of the election, but with over 130 complaints submitted to the Attorney General’s office of voter fraud and suspicious activity at the polls, the recanvass pointed to just how far Kentucky still has to go in voter security.