Republican Matt Bevin is officially calling for a recanvass after losing Kentucky gubernatorial election by 5,000 votes

published 6 November 2019

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) said he wouldn't concede the state's gubernatorial election to Democratic challenger Andy Beshear, and his campaign is now officially calling for a recanvass.

Citing unspecified "reports of irregularities" in the tightly contested election, which saw Beshear emerge victorious by about 5,000 votes, Bevin's campaign released a statement announcing the request Wednesday.

A recanvass sounds like a fancy word for recount, but it's actually a little different. Bevin's campaign is specifically calling for each county in the state to go through the ballots again on their own, while a recount would entail sending everything to the court system so it could be tallied up at once.

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Beshear's campaign has already issued a statement in response to the request. Rather than pushing back against Bevin, they seemed confident that it would only reaffirm their victory. Tim O'Donnell

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.