A full recount has been ordered in the 13th District House race to be held in Daviess County after a one-vote margin in the general election gave Jim Glenn the victory over then-incumbent DJ Johnson.
The nine-member House of Representatives committee tasked with hearing the historic election contest convened in Frankfort Wednesday. The committee heard from attorneys representing Glenn and Johnson respectively. While Glenn testified before the committee, Johnson was advised by his counsel not to attend the hearing. The committee ultimately voted 6-3 in favor of the recount, with all six Republicans voting yes and all three Democrats voting no.
Richard House, Daviess County chief deputy clerk, was also called to testify in Wednesday’s committee session. During his testimony, House said the Daviess County Clerk’s Office will assist should a recount be recommended.
“The General Assembly will have to give us guidance on how to move forward,” said House, who confirmed that the Daviess County Clerk’s Office has never taken part in a recount before.
The November 2018 recanvass, overseen by the board of elections, checked the math of the paper tapes that the voting machines produced. House said he believes that with a recount, every vote — over 12,000 — will have have to be physically looked at by the clerk’s office. Additionally, the clerk’s office may have to ask its vendor of the eSlate voting machines for help in recounting electronic votes.
A recount, House said, will take considerable man hours to conduct. But he could not give an estimated time or cost, given that the office has never conducted a recount.
Glenn’s attorney has stated that the financial burden of a recount would either fall on the taxpayers or Glenn. Johnson’s attorney said Wednesday in an open session that his client would be willing to pay the “full cost of the recount,” but has the right to dispute that cost if he finds the amount to be unreasonable. He will not, however, pay Glenn’s attorney fees.
At this time, officials say there is no estimate of what the entire recount process will cost.
The main focus of Wednesdays fact gathering hearing centered around 17 absentee ballots that were rejected by the Daviess County Board of Elections. House testified that the 17 ballots were rejected for a number of reasons, but most commonly because voters failed to sign inside or outside envelopes when returning their ballots.
Glenn’s attorney also questioned how those ballots were handled throughout this election contest. According to Laura Leigh Goins, deputy chief of staff for media relations for the Speaker of the House, those 17 ballots have not been opened as of yet.
In early January, a Kentucky State Police trooper placed the ballots in a KSP-issued safe and drove them from the Daviess County Clerk’s Office to Frankfort. That safe now resides in the House clerk’s office, maintaining KSP chain of custody protocol.
House was also asked to address two votes from the Southtown and 44th precincts. According to House, it appears that two voters signed in to Southtown, which represents the 7th House District, and then voted in precinct 44, which represents the 13th House District. These precincts were previously housed at Good Shepherd Church on Election Day, but in 2018 were moved to Centre Court where the precincts did not have as much space.
Johnson said he is pleased with Wednesday’s outcome.
“Basically, this is all I’ve asked for from the beginning,” he said. “I wanted to verify the accuracy of the votes. There is still a chance I will lose. But I owe it to every voter to get a full, accurate count. This is what this will provide.”
Owensboro Times was unable to reach Glenn or his attorney for comment.
