Kansas to begin recount of abortion referendum despite large ‘No’ vote. Here’s why

Nine of the state's 105 counties are doing the recount at the request of Melissa Leavitt, of Colby, in far northwestern Kansas, who has pushed for tighter election laws.

Kansas on Tuesday began a partial hand recount of this month’s decisive statewide vote in favor of abortion rights, a move forced by two Republican activists even though the margin was so large that the recount won’t change the outcome.

Nine of the state’s 105 counties are doing the recount at the request of Melissa Leavitt, of Colby, in far northwestern Kansas, who has pushed for tighter election laws. A longtime anti-abortion activist, Mark Gietzen, of Wichita, is covering most of the costs.

A larger than expected turnout of voters on Aug. 2 rejected a ballot measure that would have removed protections for abortion rights from the Kansas Constitution and given to the Legislature the right to further restrict abortion or ban it. It failed by 18 percentage points, or 165,000 votes statewide.

It drew broad attention because it was the first state referendum on abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.

Gietzen and Leavitt have both suggested there might have been problems without pointing to any actual examples or evidence. Gietzen acknowledged in an interview that he would be surprised if the Kansas recount changed the results, but that he wants “the system fixed.” He pointed to potential things that could have gone wrong, such as malicious software, inaccurate voter rolls and voting law violations, even though there is no evidence that happened.

Recounts increasingly are tools to encourage supporters of a candidate or cause to believe an election was stolen rather than lost. A wave of candidates who have echoed former President Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was rigged have called for recounts after losing their own Republican primaries.

In Nevada, attorney Joey Gilbert raised money to pay for a $190,000 recount that still showed him losing the GOP nomination for governor by 26,000 votes. In Colorado, county clerk Tina Peters raised $256,000 to pay for a recount that showed she gained 13 votes total in her bid for the party nomination for secretary of state, but still lost by more than 88,000 votes. Both candidates continued to claim they had actually won the election even as recounts showed they came nowhere close.

The refusal of candidates or campaigns to believe they could ever be defeated in an election is a dangerous development for American democracy, said Tammy Patrick, a former Arizona voting official who is now a senior adviser to Democracy Fund.