Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab has ordered additional election audits in six extremely close contests following Tuesday’s midterm elections, including the governor’s race, secretary of state, attorney general, and three state House districts.
But there is a catch.
Under Kansas election law, officials are required to manually recount ballots from just 10% of precincts in each affected county as part of the close-race audit.
That means roughly 90% of precincts will not undergo the additional hand-count verification, although separate routine audits and other election procedures may review some ballots.
For elections decided by razor-thin margins, that limitation is certain to raise questions about whether the state’s verification procedures go far enough.
On Wednesday, November 4, Schwab’s office announced that six contests had met the statutory threshold for additional auditing after unofficial election-night results showed margins of 1% or less, KCTV reported.
The races include:
- Governor
- Secretary of State
- Attorney General
- Kansas House District 27
- Kansas House District 40
- Kansas House District 117
According to the Kansas Secretary of State’s official announcement, county election officials must hand-count ballots in the selected precincts and compare those results against the electronic voting tabulators.
The requirement is established under Kansas Statute 25-3009.
The audits are performed by bipartisan election boards and are conducted in addition to the state’s routine post-election audits, which examine selected races in 1% of precincts.
SIX RACES — SOME DECIDED BY ONLY DOZENS OF VOTES
The stakes could hardly be higher.
According to KCTV5’s November 4 election report, several statewide contests remained too close to call.
In the governor’s race, Democrat Cindy Holscher led Republican Ty Masterson by fewer than 6,000 votes, approximately six-tenths of a percentage point, with 98% of votes counted at the time of the report.
Republican Pat Proctor led Democrat Jennifer Day in the secretary of state contest by fewer than 11,000 votes.
Meanwhile, Democrat Chris Mann led Republican incumbent Attorney General Kris Kobach by more than 11,000 votes, with the margin reported at approximately 1%.
And the state legislative contests were even closer.
In House District 27, Democrat Sara Kiewiet led Republican incumbent Sean Tarwater by just 43 votes.
In District 40, Republican incumbent David Buehler led Democrat Mika Stilwell by 67 votes.
And in District 117, Democrat Brandon Holland led Republican incumbent Adam Turk by 133 votes.
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According to Kansas election officials, the audits must be completed before the county canvassing process.
The county canvasses are scheduled to take place by November 16, with candidates able to request recounts by the applicable November 17 deadline.
Importantly, a close-race audit and a candidate-requested recount are two different procedures.
The audit is automatically triggered by the statutory margin and uses a limited sample of precincts.
A recount, when authorized and requested under Kansas law, can involve a broader examination of ballots.
Kansas has used its close-race audit procedure in previous elections, including two legislative contests in 2024. The state also reported that an August 2026 audit of the House District 42 Republican primary did not change that election’s outcome.
The real question now is whether the results of these six audits will satisfy the candidates and voters in contests separated by the narrowest of margins.
Ten percent of precincts receive the additional hand-count audit. The remaining precincts do not automatically receive the same scrutiny.
That is what the Kansas law requires.
Investigative journalist Lara Logan also weighed in on the audit:
“This is important because when they say they are doing an audit, most people just assume that means every ballot, every race. But 10 percent is a long, long way from that. It is similar in that sense to a risk limiting audit where they don’t even count every ballot. Only a small percentage of the votes in question.
The other problem with audits is that they do not examine whether the vote is legitimate or fraudulent. All they do is match the count. And when a ballot is fake, it does not matter how many times you count it. You will still get the same result.
Audits should be 100 percent not fractions of that.”
This is important because when they say they are doing an audit, most people just assume that means every ballot, every race. But 10 percent is a long, long way from that. It is similar in that sense to a risk limiting audit where they don’t even count every ballot. Only a small percentage of the votes in question.
The other problem with audits is that they do not examine whether the vote is legitimate or fraudulent. All they do is match the count. And when a ballot is fake, it does not matter how many times you count it. You will still get the same result.
Audits should be 100 percent not fractions of that.
— Lara Logan (@laralogan) November 6, 2026
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