Kansas abortion vote recount confirms original result, leaving an election denier and a GOP activist with a $120,000 bill

• A recount of Kansas' landslide abortion vote left the result unchanged on Sunday.
• A GOP anti-abortion activist and an election denier are now liable for the $120,000 cost.

A $120,000 recount of Kansas' referendum on abortion rights produced the same result as before, leaving its sponsors on the hook for the cost, according to multiple reports.

A hand recount of votes from eight of the state's 105 counties found that fewer than 100 of the original votes had been mis-counted, making no difference to the original August 2 landslide outcome, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

The original "no" vote — the vote to preserve Kansas' existing abortion rights — received 59% of the vote in a high-turnout referendum that befuddled conservatives.

A successful "yes" vote would have removed the right to an abortion from the state's constitution and ended public funding for it.

Soon after, campaigner Melissa Leavitt lobbied the state government for a recount despite the 165,000-strong margin of victory. Calls for election recounts have burgeoned in conservative politics since Trump's presidential election loss of 2020, which he refused to accept.

Kansas state law grants anyone the right to request a recount if they demonstrate they can cover its costs. If the outcome changes, the petitioners do not have to pay, but if it remains the same then they are liable.

After Leavitt's crowdfunder raised around $5,000, Republican anti-abortion activist Mark Geitzen stepped in to guarantee the remainder of the $120,000 cost of recounting nine counties. (As of Monday, Leavitt's crowdfunder had reached $54,584.)

Geitzen also leads the Kansas Republican Assembly, described by the Kansas City Star as a group far to the right of the traditional GOP.

Both Geitzen and Leavitt left their credit cards as guarantee, the AP reported. It was unclear who would pay what proportion of the cost.

Leavitt said in her fundraiser that she had "seen data" that shows "there were irregularities" in the vote. She also said she has "been studying election integrity and fraud in our state since 2020."

According to the Kansas City Star, Leavitt has previously testified to the lawmakers with conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.

The results of eight of those counties came in on Sunday, with delays to the ninth, the AP reported. The ninth — Sedgwick County — reported late due to a sorting issue, per the AP.

"I'm not going to pay for that," Geitzen said, saying that the officials "screwed up" by not advertising the time and place of the extended recount, according to The Wichita Eagle.

County officials say nobody was prevented from watching the count, which simply continued in the same location, the paper reported.

The estimated cost for that county, one of the state's largest, is $31,800, the paper reported.

Leavitt was also defiant as of Sunday, saying in a TikTok: "You're definitely going to hear the narrative 'well it didn't flip the vote, nothing matters' — well the fact of the matter is that Americans were disenfranchised from their vote by these machines."