After officials in one county found an error in the vote count for the gubernatorial Republican primary, the lead Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has in an already narrow race shrank by about half to just 91 votes.
In Thomas County, located in northwest Kansas, the initial results for the Tuesday primary showed Kobach with 466 votes and incumbent Gov. Jeff Colyer with 422, according to the Associated Press. Now the county clerk’s office displays a 522 vote for Colyer, which the clerk confirmed to the Associated Press on Thursday.
Kobach had announced at a Wednesday press conference after the initial results were counted that the outcome of the race could change.
“As you know, there are several thousand provisional ballots still out there, so the final number will change,” he said, according to The Kansas City Star. “So it is certainly possible that the result of the race could change.”
Kobach made headlines Wednesday after he said he did not see a need to recuse himself from the vote recount, saying the recounting is done by county election officials, not by the secretary of state.
Kobach has been a strong supporter of President Trump, and led his now-defunct voter fraud commission. Trump tweeted his endorsement of Kobach earlier this week before the race,
County officials still have to finish counting late-arriving mail-in ballots as well as provisional ballots for voters whose voting eligibility was not clear.
“This is a routine part of the process,” state elections director Bryan Caskey said, according to the AP. “This is why we emphasize that election-night results are unofficial.”
