Scott County: Official recount requested in District 54A race

An official recount has been requested for a tight race in the Minnesota House after election night confusion.

As previously reported, Democratic incumbent Rep. Brad Tabke led Republican Aaron Paul by 14 votes in District 54A. However, at one point on election night, it appeared Paul had a 360-vote lead with 100% of precincts reporting. Minutes later, the Secretary of State’s website changed to all zeroes as the initial vote totals were recalled. Scott County officials say an upload error made it appear 100% of votes had been reported when only 35 of 54 precincts were actually reported.

When all the results were in, Tabke had a 14-vote lead, which is close enough for an automatic taxpayer-funded recount.

An official request for a hand recount has been received for District 54A and will take place on Nov. 21.

In addition, officials identified 21 absentee records that did not have corresponding physical ballots during a routine audit of election results. Of those, 20 records were issued in Shakopee Precinct 10 and one was issued in Shakopee Precinct 12A.

On Wednesday, the Scott County Canvassing Board certified the results of the election.

The rescan of ballots that took place on Nov. 8 did not uncover those 21 ballots.

Officials say that the next step in the process is to hold a post-election review, which is a hand count of the federal races in four randomly-selected precincts that will be held on Nov. 19.

Both the post-election review and the recount will be open to the public.

Click here for more information about the post-election process.