THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Following a stinging rebuke from the Governor of Kansas, current Kansas Secretary of State and candidate for governor, Kris Kobach, will recuse himself from the recount of his close run primary election.

Secretary of State Kris W. Kobach of Kansas, clinging to the slimmest of leads in the Republican primary for governor, said Thursday night that he planned to recuse himself from the vote-counting process. Earlier in the evening, his opponent, Gov. Jeff Colyer, said that some local election officials had been provided incorrect information by Mr. Kobach that could suppress votes.

“I’ll be happy to recuse myself,” Mr. Kobach, who oversees the state’s elections, said in an interview with CNN. Mr. Kobach, who has the endorsement of President Trump and has built a national reputation for warning of widespread vote fraud, suggested that his role in the Kansas count had been mostly symbolic anyway.

The governor’s fiery recusal request, and Mr. Kobach’s pledge to comply, came after the nationally watched primary left the candidates separated by only 191 votes entering Thursday.

In a letter, Mr. Colyer said some clerks had been provided incorrect information about which ballots to count, and he urged Mr. Kobach to appoint the state attorney general to handle future questions from local election workers.

“It has come to my attention that your office is giving advice to county election officials — as recently as a conference call yesterday — and you are making public statements on national television which are inconsistent with Kansas law and may serve to suppress the vote in the ongoing Kansas primary election process,” Mr. Colyer wrote.

That sour letter, sent just a day after both candidates called for Republican unity, underscored longstanding divisions within the state party and the extreme closeness of a nationally watched race in which thousands of votes have not yet been recorded. The extended counting process, which will last at least into next week and perhaps much longer, gives the already hopeful Democratic and independent candidates a chance to campaign while the Republicans remain mired in a primary.

So either the pressure was on Kobach to at least look honest or he has left instructions with his staf on how he is to win.