A Scott County judge on Monday heard arguments in an election contest over the close race for a seat in the Minnesota House of Representatives.

Republican candidate Aaron Paul is challenging the results, which showed DFL Rep. Brad Tabke winning House District 54A by 14 votes — but only after county officials admitted to losing 21 ballots.

On Monday, Reid Lebeau, an attorney for Paul, argued there should be a new election because the number of ballots that are unaccounted for is greater than Tabke’s margin of victory.

“Certainty and confidence. That is the minimum all American citizens deserve in our elections. Certainty and confidence are not based on percentages or assumptions,” Lebeau said. “The facts will show all we are certain and have confidence in in this election is that 20 lawfully cast ballots are missing. More ballots are missing than the vote totals between the two candidates for House District 54A.”

David Zoll, an attorney representing Tabke, made the case that special elections typically have low turnout, and a new contest would effectively nullify the 21,980 votes that were counted.

“Contestant Aaron Paul suggested we should simply throw up our hands and say there’s no way to know who won the election and we should just start over,” Zoll said. “He says we should disregard the votes cast by more than 20,000 residents of House District 54A and put this contest to a special elections where history shows only a fraction of voters will cast ballots and have voices heard.”

Scott County Elections Administrator Julie Hanson testified she’s “confident” they know who the 20 voters are whose ballots were lost in one precinct but acknowledges she can’t say she’s 100% certain because some procedures weren’t properly followed.

When Lebeau asked Hanson to “characterize the scope of the error,” she testified, “Very large. This is — it’s a big deal.”

Six people who cast their ballots for Paul testified Monday expressing their frustration that their votes might not have been counted.

“It upsets me a lot because it was a really big election,” a woman identified only as Voter No. 15 said.

“Frankly, I feel like I’ve been robbed. Makes me question the integrity of our elections,” a man identified as Voter No. 17 testified.

A handful of Tabke voters are expected to testify on Tuesday.

This is a pivotal race that could determine the balance of power in the House — currently tied at 67 democrats and 67 republicans.

“They do have a decent case for it,” Hamline political science professor David Schultz said of the possibility for a special election. “Let’s say for the sake of argument it’s completely innocent in terms of what happened here, someone made a mistake. A judge could still conclude and say the results are not reliable.

Scott County District Judge Tracy Perzel has to make a decision in the case no later than the first day of the legislative session on Jan. 14.