Questions are still swirling surrounding last week’s election results in Minnesota.
The Upper Midwest Law Center has been working to safeguard election integrity in the state for years. Senior trial counsel James Dickey joined Liz Collin Reports to discuss the ballot reporting issues in Sherburne and Scott counties, concerns about transparency in Minnesota elections, a Hennepin County election judge lawsuit, and what a Donald Trump presidency could mean for election changes in Minnesota next year.
In two Minnesota House races, vote totals changed on election night, even after the secretary of state’s website displayed 100% of precincts reporting. The changes went in favor of Democratic House candidates. The Minnesota House now remains an even split due to those outcomes.
“The errors and discrepancies we’ve seen this cycle are intolerable and unacceptable,” said Minnesota House GOP Leader Lisa Demuth, who successfully broke up the Minnesota DFL’s trifecta in Tuesday’s elections.
“Without an opportunity to observe or respond Sherburne County added newly-found votes to the total. Just a day later, Scott County announced an unspecified ‘ballot distribution error’ and ‘ballot scanning malfunction’ that triggered an abrupt re-scan of more than 20,000 ballots. There was less than two hours notice between the public announcement and the beginning of the re-scan process,” she said.
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— Alpha News (@AlphaNewsMN) November 9, 2024
Dickey explained how it’s “extremely important” for cities and counties “to get these totals right so that there isn’t any appearance of a problem in the process.”
“I think we all understand that errors do happen. And the good news is that Minnesota does have a backup in the form of paper ballots filled out by each voter … but the answer to citizens’ rightful concerns about what’s going on in Scott County and Sherburne County is transparency and equal representation at the ballot box,” Dickey said.
“I think the law does provide that in some ways. For example, all of the counting at the counting center, under law, is required to be open to the public. So when Scott County does a re-scan of all ballots, that should have been open to the public and notice should have been sufficient to ensure that the public could observe it and all counting requires two election judges, one from each party, to observe the officials doing the counting under Minnesota statute.
“There’s no question that the secretary of state should be conducting recounts regardless of the percentage margin for either of the two seats that we’re talking about in Scott and Sherburne County. It’s a low cost to do this compared to the importance of making sure there’s additional confidence that Minnesotans can have in the results and doing a hand recount would give you that confidence. But I do understand that at least in Sherburne County, there is going to be that kind of hand recount,” he added.
On the issue last week, in a statement to Alpha News, a spokesperson for Secretary of State Steve Simon said it’s always valuable to remember that all posted results are unofficial until the post-election review process and canvassing board meetings are complete. Additionally, Sherburne County said it plans to conduct a hand recount at its own expense in the race between Republican Sue Ek and Democrat Dan Wolgamott, while the race in Scott County between Republican Aaron Paul and Democrat Brad Tabke appears to be headed for an automatic recount.
Dickey said states like Florida provide a model for swiftly and transparently releasing election results.
“You get data dumps that come after other ballots have been counted and so on. It’s kind of crazy to me that we don’t have a system like Florida where everything seems to be done by 10 p.m. Eastern on election night and there are no problems,” Dickey said.
“It’s kind of crazy to see that states like Minnesota and Arizona are so delayed in getting final official numbers,” he continued. “So while I agree in part with the secretary that people should kind of pause and wait until the results are official and they’re canvassed, the canvassing process where the official results happen isn’t for several days after the election and you’d think that by election night, we should have a really clear picture without any back and forth and increases and decreases and changing in the numbers prior to them being uploaded to the secretary of state’s website.”
Liz Collin
Liz Collin has been a truth-teller for 20 years as a multi-Emmy-Award-winning reporter and anchor. Liz is a Worthington, Minnesota native who lives in the suburbs with her husband, son and loyal lab.
