FRANKFORT, Ky. - Gov. Matt Bevin has filed a request with the Secretary of State's office to recanvass the vote totals from Tuesday's election, so what exactly does that mean?

A recanvass involves county election officials testing their voting machines to verify the vote totals from Tuesday were accurate. It isn't a recount, which is the counting of individual ballots.

The Kentucky Board of Elections is scheduled to conduct the recanvass Nov. 14.

University of Kentucky law professor Joshua Douglas says recanvassing isn’t rare, but it rarely changes the results of an election.

Beyond that, Douglas said the only other option for Bevin to challenge the election would be to file a formal notice with the legislature, contesting the results.

Douglas said that route has almost never been taken for a governors race.

"In fact, for gubernatorial elections, the only one I'm aware of is from 1899," Douglas said, referencing the race between William S. Taylor and William Goebel.

Someone actually assassinated Goebel as that process played out.

Moving back to 2019, if Governor Bevin were to contest the results of the election, Douglas said a special legislative committee would be called, made up of eight House lawmakers and three state senators.

"The statute actually has details about putting each person's name on an identical piece of paper and drawing the names randomly, and also rules about someone who might have to recuse themselves if they might be too biased or related to one of the candidates," Douglas said. "But ultimately, this 11-member committee would take the evidence and hear the arguments and file a report with the full legislature, and then the full legislature would sit as a joint session to ultimately decide the outcome."

What happens after that is an unknown, and depends on what evidence Bevin has that the vote was improper.

The legislature could determine Bevin was the rightful winner and name him Governor— or they could call a new election— which would have to take place within 30 days of their decision to overturn the original results.