Nine of the state’s 105 counties are holding the recount at the request of Melissa Leavitt, of Colby, in northwest Kansas, who has pushed for stricter election laws. A longtime anti-abortion activist, Mark Gietzen, of Wichita, is covering most of the cost. A larger-than-expected voter turnout on Aug. 2 rejected a ballot measure that would have stripped abortion rights protections from the Kansas Constitution and given the legislature the right to further restrict or ban abortions. He failed by 18 percentage points, or 165,000 votes statewide. It drew widespread attention because it was the first state referendum on abortion since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June. WHY REFUND IF IT DOESN’T CHANGE THE RESULT? Gietzen and Leavitt both suggested that there might be problems without citing actual examples or evidence. Gietzen acknowledged in an interview that he would be surprised if the Kansas count changed the results, but that he wants “the system to be fixed.” He pointed to possible things that could have gone wrong, including malware, inaccurate voter rolls and election law violations, although there is no evidence that they happened. Recounts are increasingly tools to embolden a candidate’s supporters or believe the election was stolen rather than lost. A wave of candidates echoing former President Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was rigged have called for a recount after losing their own Republican primary. In Nevada, attorney Joey Gilbert raised money to pay for a $190,000 recount that showed he lost 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 her winning a total of 13 votes in her bid for the party’s nomination for secretary of state, but losing by more than 88,000 votes. Both candidates continued to claim they had indeed won the election, even though recounts showed they came nowhere close. The refusal of candidates or campaigns to believe they could ever lose an election is a dangerous development for American democracy, said Tammy Patrick, a former Arizona voter who is now a senior adviser at the Democracy Fund. “What we’re seeing now is people just don’t believe they’ve lost because they’re constantly being fed these lies about the legitimacy of the process,” Patrick said. The call for a recount “keeps their base engaged, emasculated and donated,” he added. Deb Otis of the nonprofit group Fair Vote wrote a report that found there were about two recounts a year in national elections between 2000 and 2019, and only three had the results changed after the recounts revealed tiny but significant flaws in the original tally. “Voters will start to lose track of when these claims are legitimate and when a state should pay for a recount,” Otis said. Kansas law requires a recount if those requesting it prove they can cover the counties’ costs. Counties only pay if the result changes. WHAT IS THE PROCESS; Kansas law says counties have five days after the request to complete a recount. The clock to recount the abortion measure started Monday when the Kansas secretary of state’s office concluded that Gitgen and Leavitt could cover the cost. All nine counties are expected to finish by Saturday. Four started the narrative by Tuesday, and one of them, Lyon County, planned to finish by the end of the day. The other five planned to start on Wednesday. WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM? Leavitt and Gietzen provided credit cards to pay the nearly $120,000 cost, according to the secretary of state’s office. Leavitt has an online fundraising page that had raised more than $47,000 as of Tuesday afternoon. Gietzen also said he receives donations from a network built over three decades in the anti-abortion movement, but declined to be more specific. The two originally wanted a recount in all 105 Kansas counties, but were unable to raise the required $229,000. Gietzen said the nine counties were chosen based in part on their population and cost. Votes are being recounted in Douglas County, home to the University of Kansas’ main campus. Johnson County, in the suburbs of Kansas City; Sedgwick County, seat Wichita, Shawnee County, seat Topeka. and Crawford, Harvey, Jefferson, Lyon and Thomas counties. Abortion opponents lost all of those counties except Thomas. WHO IS BEHIND THIS? Gietzen has been active in the anti-abortion movement and often protests outside an abortion clinic in Wichita. He leads his own group, the Kansas Coalition for Life, which is separate from the larger and more powerful Kansans for Life who hold significant power in the Statehouse. He has pushed legislation to ban most abortions around the sixth week of pregnancy. Kansas law does not do this until the 22nd week. He also leads the Kansas Republican Convention, which had some influence among conservative GOP activists more than a decade ago before they established their dominance in the state party organization. He is retired from Boeing Aircraft Company. He has run unsuccessfully for the Legislature repeatedly and has been an activist against cities adding fluoride to their drinking water, which Wichita rejected in 2012. “It’s so far, right, it’s coming from the other side,” said former Republican state Rep. John Whitmer, a Wichita radio talk show host. “There’s just not a lot of wiggle room with Mark.” Leavitt owns a hobby and craft store in Colby. He has questioned the way Thomas County handles its elections. He served on a local election advisory group. WHY ISN’T IT GOING TO CHANGE THE RESULT? Voters in the nine counties cast about 59 percent of more than 922,000 ballots in the Aug. 2 question. They rejected the anti-abortion measure by 31 percentage points — significantly more than the state as a whole. Recounts almost never reverse an election, even in the closest races. Since the Florida recount of the 2000 presidential race, more than 30 statewide elections across the US have been recounted. The three overturned were decided by hundreds of votes — not thousands. The largest lead erased by a statewide recount was 261 votes in the 2004 Washington state election for governor. There is no precedent in US history for a recount that reverses the outcome of an election decided by more than 165,000 votes. Even some staunch abortion opponents see the count as a waste of time and money. Whitmer said the money could be much better spent on GOP efforts to unseat Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly or on competitive legislative seats.
Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri, and Riccardi from Denver. Margaret Stafford in Kansas City, Missouri and Stephen Ohlemacher in Washington, DC also contributed
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