KY group questions integrity of narrow election win

The closely-watched race for Kentucky governor deserves more scrutiny than just political analysis, says a group that is claiming suspicious activity.

---

UPDATE: This afternoon, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin
conceded the governor's race to Andy Beshear.

---

Citizens for Election Integrity - Kentucky is investigating what it describes as "multiple irregularities" in the November 5 gubernatorial election that bring into question the integrity of the results. Democrat Andy Beshear narrowly defeated the incumbent Republican governor, Matt Bevin, 49-48 percent, a difference of approximately 5,100 votes – and Bevin predictably refused to concede on election night due to the challenger’s narrow victory.

A recanvassing of the governor’s race began today, Nov. 14, CNN reported.

Erika Calihan of Election Integrity says one example is a dramatic 1,200-vote swing in which Bevin’s vote total dropped by 560 and Beshear’s jumped by that same amount.

“This is deeply concerning in such a close election,” Calihan told reporters at a press conference this week.

The election integrity group was referencing election night screen shots on CNN, a Kentucky newspaper reported in a story that was critical of Calihan and the group, and dismissed their claims as “immediately proven inaccurate or irrelevant.”

The newspaper story said Election Integrity claimed to be a grassroots group of concerned “moms” although Calihan supported Bevin’s re-election and was appointed by him to a state’s Judicial Nomination Commission.

Elsewhere in the same story, however, the reporter acknowledges that Bevin says thousands of absentee votes were illegally counted, a topic that was not addressed by the group at the press conference.

Election Integrity also told the media it is working with Aaron Gillum, an IT engineer, who questioned why the state’s voter data are compiled by Scytl, a tech company based in Spain that uses Amazon web services for its database.  

Scytl, headquartered in Barcelona, was booted from Switzerland’s election over a “critical flaw” that allows for undetected vote altering.

Gillum called it a “fair expectation” for the company to produce voter machine logs that would allow voting officials to examine the data to confirm that it matches the numbers tabulated in Kentucky.