One Kansas Statehouse race in Johnson County that was too close to call after Election Night will be the subject of a state-mandated audit this week.
The contest is between sitting Democratic state Rep. Nikki McDonald and Republican challenger Kurt Ruf in Kansas House District 49.
The district covers a portion of eastern Olathe and a small neighboring area of Overland Park, running along Pflumm Road between 127th and 159th streets.
After Tuesday’s election, McDonald led Ruf by 95 votes out of more than 12,000 ballots cast overall.
According to state law, an audit of an election contest is automatically required when the margin between the candidates is within 1%.
The audit will be conducted Tuesday, Nov. 12
Though the audit was announced by the Kansas Secretary of State’s office last week, the audit itself will be conducted by the Johnson County Election Office.
The audit will take place Tuesday, Nov. 12, at 9 a.m. at the county election office, 2101 E. Kansas City Rd., in Olathe. The audit is open to the public.
According to state law, the audit must be done by a bipartisan team of trained “sworn board members.”
State law does not require a manual recounting of all ballots cast in the race. Instead, it calls for an audit of votes cast in 10% of the precincts in a race.
A spokesperson for the county said that means ballots in two of the 15 precincts in House District 49 will be audited Tuesday.
McDonald leads Ruf by 125 votes after updated counts
McDonald’s Election Night lead grew last week after counts were updated with provisional and mail-in ballots.
As of Friday, unofficial tallies published by the county election office show McDonald with a 125-vote lead over Ruf, extending her lead by 30 votes from Election Night.
Overall, according to that unofficial final count, McDonald garnered 6,183 votes to Ruf’s 6,058.
The county election office says the audit will only be conducted on results from Tuesday, not the updated totals from later in the week.
“I trust that our elections are fair and secure,” McDonald said in a statement emailed to the Post. “I appreciate the careful attention the Johnson County Election Commissioner and his staff take towards ensuring continued confidence in our elections and following the letter of the law. And of course I will accept the results of this democratic process, regardless of the outcome.”
Ruf said he planned to issue a statement about the audit on his campaign website or social media channels, but he had yet to do that as of Monday. Ruf did acknowledge that the House District 49 race would be subject to a “close race” audit on his campaign’s X account.
McDonald is seeking to hold on to a district for Democrats and earn her first full term in office. She was elected by local Democratic party officials last year to serve out the remaining term of Rep. Brad Boyd, who resigned last December.
Meanwhile, a Ruf victory would mark another Republican Statehouse pickup in Johnson County, which had been trending bluer over the past decade. GOP candidates flipped two other Democratic-held districts in the Olathe area on Tuesday.
Other ballots to be audited as standard procedure
In addition to the special audit of House District 49, the bipartisan auditing board will conduct audits of other races, which is a standard procedure laid out by state law.
After every election, Kansas counties are required by state law to conduct audits of ballots cast in 1% of all precincts.
During presidential election years, that audit must include ballots cast for at least one federal race, one state legislative race and one county-level race.
The audit is being done ahead of the meeting of the county canvassing board, which will convene initially on Friday.
The board reviews the election, resolving any outstanding voting issues and determining the validity of any questionable provisional or mail-in ballots.
The board is scheduled to convene a second time on Monday, Nov. 18, to certify the final official results of this month’s election in Johnson County.
