Why Sanders Requested A 'Recanvass' And Not A 'Recount' In Kentucky

Why Sanders Requested A 'Recanvass' And Not A 'Recount' In Kentucky

May 24, 20164:13 PM ET
DOMENICO MONTANARO

http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016...-s1200-c85.jpg
Sen. Bernie Sanders sits for an interview with The Associated Press Monday.

Jae C. Hong/AP

Bernie Sanders' campaign has requested a "recanvass" of voting in the Kentucky primary — not a "recount."

They are not the same.

What's the difference?

As NPR's Asma Khalid noted on air — a recanvass will "entail checking all of the voting machines and absentee ballots in all each of the state's counties to verify the accuracy of the vote totals."

In other words, individual ballots will not be checked. A recount would have re-checked how people voted on actual ballots.

Hillary Clinton leads Sanders by less than 2,000 votes following the May 17 primary.

You mean they won't check actual ballots?

Nope.

Why would Sanders not request a recount then?

Because his campaign would have to pay for it.

The state pays for the recanvass.

Politically, it gives Sanders the opportunity to continue to call into question the results; allow some of his supporters to continue to allege that Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is close to the Clintons, put her finger on the scale; raise money — and do all of it at no cost.

Not to mention — all of this is over probably one delegate. The AP allocated 27 pledged delegates apiece for Clinton and Sanders with one outstanding. Clinton currently leads by 271 pledged delegates and 766 overall.

Here's the Louisville Courier-Journal's explainer from the last time the state conducted a recanvass.

http://www.npr.org/2016/05/24/479346...nt-in-kentucky

MAY 26 2016, 1:46 PM ET

Recanvass in Kentucky Confirms Clinton Win Over Sanders

by CARRIE DANN

A recanvass of Democratic primary results in Kentucky confirmed that Clinton won the May 17 contest over Bernie Sanders, the Kentucky secretary of state said on Thursday.

Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Grimes announced that there were "the recanvass results did not alter the outcome of the election."

Sanders requested the recanvass on Tuesday. The recanvass involved a retabulation of the votes as they were originally counted, not a full recount, which would have required examination of ballots and voting machines.

Results after primary night showed Clinton barely leading the contest, with 212,550 votes compared to Sanders' 210,626 votes, or a margin of 1,924 votes.

NBC News declared Clinton the "apparent winner" of the contest last week. Grimes, a Clinton supporter, also named Clinton the winner of the primary last week.

Grimes said Thursday that the unofficial results of the canvassing now show a margin of 1,911 votes for Clinton.

Grimes' office said the 13-vote discrepancy was the result of "provisional votes and a discrepancy in absentee ballot totals in two counties."

A change in the winner of the Kentucky contest may have given Sanders a small boost in terms of political momentum, but the stakes for the actual Democratic delegate count were small.

Because the state allocates its delegates proportionally, Sanders would have picked up a single delegate at most if he had been declared the winner by a small margin.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016...anders-n581016