Kansas Will Hand-Count Its Governor’s Race. Masterson Trails by 7,045, and a Court Kept Late Ballots Coming

Kansas hasn’t picked its next governor yet, and starting Thursday it’s checking the machines by hand. In the state’s unofficial count Wednesday night, Democrat Cindy Holscher had 549,974 votes to Republican Senate President Ty Masterson’s 542,929. That’s a 7,045-vote gap out of about 1.09 million cast, or 0.64%. No one has called it.

Holscher declared victory Wednesday morning anyway. Masterson didn’t concede. “The first count does not seem to be going our way, but the margin is narrow enough that Kansas law calls for another look, and we’ll let that process finish,” he said in a statement. “Every Kansan deserves to know the result is right.”

The hand count

That “another look” is a close-race audit, and it’s automatic. Under K.S.A. 25-3009, any federal, statewide or legislative race within 1% on election night gets one. Secretary of State Scott Schwab announced Wednesday that six races qualify: governor, secretary of state, attorney general and Kansas House Districts 27, 40 and 117.

Here’s how it works. County workers pull the paper ballots from 10% of the precincts in every county, at least one per county, and count that race by hand. Then they compare the hand count with what the tabulators reported. Ballot images don’t count; under state rules it has to be the paper. If the totals don’t match and officials can’t explain why, they can widen the audit to more precincts.

State elections director Bryan Caskey told the Kansas Reflector that counties will work from Thursday into the weekend so the audit is done before Monday, when county commissions start certifying. Past audits have confirmed Kansas results, he said, sometimes with small differences like a machine missing an oval that wasn’t filled in right.

The ballots Republicans tried to stop

The count isn’t finished, either. Mail ballots postmarked by Election Day still count if they reach the county by Friday. Provisional ballots still have to be reviewed, and Caskey said the state was still trying to learn how many there are.

Kansas Republicans tried to end that Friday window. For about 40 years, Kansas law said a mail ballot had to arrive by Election Day. In 2017 the Legislature added a three-day grace period. In 2025, with Senate Bill 4, it went back to a 7 p.m. Election Day deadline.

Then the courts stepped in. Kansas Appleseed and other groups sued in May 2025. On July 16, 2026, a Douglas County judge issued a temporary injunction that kept the three-day window in place while the case goes on. Schwab asked the Kansas Court of Appeals to pause it before the August primary and lost. He asked again before the general election, and on Oct. 2 a three-judge panel said no. “When considering important constitutional challenges concerning election procedure and faced with an upcoming election,” the judges wrote, “courts must be careful to avoid rulings that could cause votes to be lost.”

So a law the Legislature passed has never been used in a single election. The court hasn’t ruled on whether it’s constitutional. It only kept it on ice. And now ballots that show up after Election Day will be added to a governor’s race separated by less than two-thirds of a percent.

The recount math

Masterson has until 5 p.m. Nov. 17 to ask for a full recount. Under Kansas law, the state pays for a machine recount only if the margin is 0.5% or less. At 0.64%, Masterson would have to pay himself, unless the gap shrinks. Caskey said it’s too early to ask before the audits finish and counties sort out their provisional ballots. Masterson’s spokesman said the “another look” in his statement meant the audit that’s already in state law.

At his Wichita watch party Tuesday night, Masterson told the crowd, “What I’m afraid is we’re gonna have lawyers involved in this thing.”

Two more statewide races on the line

The governor’s race isn’t the only one getting a hand count. Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach, the most famous election-integrity fighter in the state, trails Democrat Chris Mann by about 11,300 votes. In the secretary of state’s race, Republican Pat Proctor leads Democrat Jennifer Day by about 10,800. Both are inside the 1% line, and both are being audited.

This is also the state where federal agents found 394 political mailers in a rural mail carrier’s garage on the eve of the election, every one of them Republican, according to her indictment. Every Kansan Masterson talked about deserves the same thing in this count: paper ballots counted twice, by machine and by hand, and every late arrival checked against the law.

What to watch: The audit totals from each county this weekend, Friday’s last mail ballots, the provisional count when canvassing starts Monday, and whether the margin drops under 0.5% before the Nov. 17 recount deadline.