OLATHE, Kan. — Following a fundraising effort to initiate a recount on the Amendment 2 question regarding abortion, nine Kansas counties will begin a manual recount of all primary ballots.
Inside the Johnson County Election Office, volunteers sorted ballots on Tuesday, as they prepare to start counting them on Wednesday.
More than 150 volunteers will be required in the effort, two weeks after the primary.
"The Secretary of State's office notified us at about 5:45, 6 p.m., yesterday evening that we we're one of nine counties to conduct this hand recount process," Fred Sherman, the Johnson County Election Commissioner, said.
Johnson County voters chose "No" on Amendment 2 by a 38-point margin.
Neighboring Douglas County is another chosen county for the recount. Those voters chose "No" by a 62-point margin. Statewide, "No" beat "Yes" by 18 points.
"Although this is a recount that will take a lot of effort and cost a lot of money, it's very unlikely to change the results," Dr. Debra Leiter, a UMKC political science professor, said.
Kansas Republican Assembly president Mark Gietzen is helping pay for the effort.
Gietzen says he tried to put up a home as collateral for a statewide recount, but that request was denied by the Kansas Secretary of State.
"All I could come up with in cash was about $120,000," Gietzen said in a one-on-one interview with KSHB 41.
That number was confirmed through a Kansas Republican Assembly credit card statement, which is enough funds for a nine-county recount.
Gietzen's work is in conjunction with a Give Send Go fundraiser, organized by Melissa Leavitt of Colby, Kansas.
"That's got $45,000 and that only was started on Friday, so I think that Kansans in general want the same thing I want, they want an election system to be fixed," Gietzen said.
Still, Leiter said a significant amount of votes would need to change.
"This is about 165,000 votes that would have to change," Leiter said. "The likelihood of the election results changing with a margin this high are near zero."
So far, the state has found no evidence of voter fraud on this scale.
Now, nine counties will re-count ballots, with Johnson County being the largest county among them.
More than 256,000 Johnson County ballots from more than 550 precincts will be counted with a Saturday recount deadline.
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