Despite William Goebel's active campaigning, he ended up losing the election by just over 2,000 votes, with 191,331 compared to William Taylor's 193,714. But while the National Endowment for the Humanities writes that Goebel accepted his defeat "graciously," his supporters weren't ready to give up just yet. They convinced Goebel to ask for a recount, but upon doing so, the State Board "declin[ed] to invalidate any of the results, on grounds that it lacked authority to investigate charges of fraud," according to History Net. As a result, Taylor was inaugurated on December 12, 1899.
Before the inauguration, then-governor William O'Connell Bradley had asked President McKinley to send federal troops to Kentucky "to maintain order—that is, to protect Taylor's lead." However, President McKinley had refused to involve the federal government. So instead, Republicans from eastern Kentucky decided to head to Frankfurt, armed, as an editor in Louisville coined the phrase, to "stop the steal."
However, the election results remained heavily contested into 1900, and during the new session of the legislature, Goebel charged that the votes of at least 50 counties had been tainted and that a Contest Committee must be chosen to review these claims. However, when the members of the committee were chosen, only one member was Republican, with the other 10 were made up of nine Democrats and one Populist who tended to lean Democrat.
