Did you hear the one about the least popular “president” in the history of polling going to Kentucky to help boost the campaign of the least popular Governor in the U.S.? Gov. Matt Bevin was up by 5 points in the polls until Donald Trump held a rally for the Republican governor, who then lost to a Democrat in the red state. Bevin has refused to concede to Governor-elect Andy Beshear, who defeated him by 5,189 votes. And now, Bevin is floating the idea of voting irregularities, but surprisingly, Republicans just want him to shut the fuck up.
“The best thing to do, the right thing to do, is for Governor Bevin to concede the election today so we can move on,” said Rep. Jason Nemes (R-Louisville).
Bevin has provided no proof of voting irregularities.
“The proof isn’t that people were turned away, the proof is that you have to show fraud or irregularities,” Nemes said. “You can’t just go on a fishing expedition at this point, there hasn’t even been evidence of specific fraud.”
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Senate President Robert Stivers (R-Manchester) initially floated the bizarre possibility that the Republican-led legislature would determine who won the race, but his reasoning was highly flawed. In fact, it was bonkers.
The Lexington Herald-Leder reports:
Nemes said he has not seen much support for an election challenge among his Republican colleagues in the House, largely because the governor has not backed up his claims. None of the lawmakers the Herald-Leader spoke to Thursday said they had seen evidence to support Bevin’s claims.”
In other words, Republicans are telling Bevin: Don’t let the door hit ya’ on the way out.
Rep. John Blanton (R-Salyersville) wasn’t having any of it either.
“The last thing anyone wants to do is overturn a constitutional election,” Blanton said. “We want the will of the people to be done.”
Rep. Koenig (R-Erlanger) said unless there’s evidence, Bevin needs to just “let it go.”
Bevin isn’t finding much love among his colleagues.
“I’ve never seen a recanvass move more than 100 votes, so it’s really doubtful that it will move,” said Rep. Jerry Miller (R-Louisville).
Late Thursday, Stivers attempted to backpedal on his previous comments on election night in which he said that Republicans would determine the results, saying he was just talking about the process that would take place if Bevin were to contest the election.
“It is the governor’s prerogative to request recanvassing or file an application to contest the election, both of which will have a very high bar to succeed,” Stivers said. “If such a situation arises when the Senate’s involvement is required as prescribed by the Kentucky Constitution, our chamber will fulfill its requirements with the utmost objectivity and impartiality.”
Yeah, because to do otherwise would piss a lot of voters off. Like IQ45 has done, Bevin is trying to claim fraud because he just can’t let go. It’s time for Bevin to be a big boy and let the Democratic Governor-elect do his job, and clean up his predecessor’s mess.
Featured image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr under Creative Commons license 2.0
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