Gov. Jeff Colyer and Secretary of State Kris Kobach turned over squabbling duties to their proxies Monday as counties began tallying provisional ballots, extending Kobach’s lead in the GOP primary to 206 votes.
Kobach assistant Eric Rucker and Colyer’s chief counsel, Brant Laue, offered competing views of Kansas law governing provisional ballots completed by unaffiliated voters. The issue is whether votes should count if a volunteer poll worker made a mistake.
County canvassing boards are weighing those arguments as they sort through 9,000 provisional ballots this week. They don’t have to finish their work until Aug. 20, but the deadline for a candidate to request a recount is Friday.
More than 60 of the state’s 105 counties began reviewing ballots Monday. With the largest population, the final numbers from Johnson County could solidify or overturn Kobach’s lead. Officials tossed out 898 provisional ballots Monday while accepting 1,451. Those were expected to be counted by Tuesday afternoon.
(Read more: State Government – The Topeka Capital-Journal)