Bernie Sanders has requested a recanvass of votes cast in Kentucky’s Democratic presidential primary, narrowly won by Hillary Clinton.
The recanvass is essentially a retabulation of results from each precinct. It will be conducted on Thursday by the Secretary of State’s office.
University of Kentucky election law professor Joshua Douglas says recanvasses are a vestige of the time before electronic voting machines.
“When you have humans counting the votes, then certainly there’s a chance for greater changes in the vote-counting process," states Douglas. "With electronic voting machines, a recanvass is really just pressing the button and it’ll spit out the vote totals again. The likelihood of change at least in those counties is pretty small.”
There are still many counties that have paper ballots.
The last recanvass conducted in the state was of the 2015 Republican gubernatorial primary, which James Comer requested after losing to then-candidate Matt Bevin by 83 votes. The recanvass did not change the outcome of the primary election.Professor Douglas says even if the recanvass doesn’t yield different results, Sanders’ request could play well politically.
“That's probably what this is, to help their storyline, to say ‘look, Kentucky’s really a tie and it’s so close that we even fall within the boundary of requesting a recanvass,'" adds Douglas.
Sanders lost the race to Hillary Clinton by fewer than 2,000 votes.
The senator from Vermont’s slim chance of victory is dependent on picking up super delegates who have already committed to the Clinton campaign. Sanders has vowed to stay in the race until the end of the primary season.
