Mongiardo Seeks Recanvass In KY-SEN Dem Primary — But Outcome Unlikely To Change

KY Sen. candidates Daniel Mongiardo (D) and Jack Conway (D)
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Kentucky Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo has announced that he will seek a recanvass of the votes in the Democratic primary for Senate, in which he has come up short against state Attorney General Jack Conway. However, the Secretary of State’s office tells TPMDC that a recanvass would be unlikely to change the outcome.

From the Mongiardo campaign’s press release:

Mongiardo trails Conway by 3,542 out of 520,412 votes cast, a razor thin margin of 0.68 percent.

Mongiardo campaign spokesman Kim Geveden said, “Make no mistake, Daniel accepts the results and congratulates Jack Conway on his hard-fought race. But Daniel also believes, in a race this close, he owes it to his supporters across the Commonwealth who gave so much of their time, energy and money to our cause, to make sure the results are accurate. With only 3,542 votes between the candidates, let’s be sure the votes have been accurately reported.”

“While it is unlikely there are sufficient errors to reverse the outcome, this re-canvassing process is quick and simple and will give the nominee of our party the ability to move forward into the fall against Rand Paul,” said Geveden.

Conway spokeswoman Allison Haley was surprised to hear about this, when the Louisville Courier-Journal asked for comment. “You’re kidding,” said Haley. “He conceded.”

The key thing to remember here is that a recanvass is not the same as a recount — it is in fact a process that is standard in most states, but not Kentucky, of double-checking the state’s spreadsheets for human errors in data entry. In Kentucky, candidates must request that this be done, and it is then conducted at the government’s expense. A recount would have to be ordered by a judge, and could span a limited number of counties or theoretically even the whole state — but the whole cost would have to be borne by the candidate requesting it, win or lose.

Furthermore, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Les Fugate told us that the data from most counties, including the more populous ones, was uploaded directly from the local systems, with a rough guess that only 25% of the votes were entered into the system by hand. As such, there is not much room for human error. Fugate also told us the state has never had a massive, large-scale recount outside of Jefferson County (Louisville).

“We do get recanvass requests often, and every now and then you might see a candidate pick up a vote or two, typically related to a transposition error or whatever,” said Fugate “But for the most part, with a margin with this large, it would not be probable to see the outcome change.”

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