MINNESOTA, USA — After election night, the Minnesota House is split evenly with 67 DFLers and 67 Republicans.
According to the Minnesota Legislature's website, Minnesota hasn't experienced a tie in the House since 1979.
However, two races are headed for a recount. If a recount changes either of those races to a Republican winning, it would flip the House.
In the House District 14B race in St. Cloud, DFL incumbent Dan Wolgamott came out on top with 50.36% of the votes over Republican challenger Sue Ek.
According to the Minnesota Secretary of State's Office, it's a difference of just 191 votes.
But at one point on election night with 100% of precincts reporting, unofficial results had Ek winning by just 4 votes. Then shortly after, Wolgamott led by 28.
So what happened?
On Saturday, Sherburne County released a statement saying it plans to conduct hand recounts of votes in select races and will be covering the costs associated with it.
According to Sherburne County, some ballots failed to upload to the Secretary of State's website on election night. Those ballots were mail-in ballots received up to 8 p.m. on election night that, according to the county, had been properly processed, counted and included in the printed and electronic tabulations generated at Sherburne County.
The county blamed the upload failure on an "improperly cleared or partially damaged memory card that did not fully collect and transmit results from some of the processed mail-in ballots." That same memory card, according to the county, went on to send some generic test data designed to test the reporting system prior to the election, creating "inflated vote totals that later decreased once the error was discovered and corrected."
On Friday, Minnesota Republican Party Chair David Hann demanded an investigation and recount in 14B.
"Secretary Simon must restore confidence in Minnesota's elections process by calling for and providing funds for a recount in 14B, immediately," said Hann, in a statement.
But the next day, Sherburne County responded saying it will hand recount the votes and will pay for it.
The county said, "Contrary to circulating rumors, no votes were 'lost' and none were 'found.'"
In a statement, the county said, "To ensure public transparency, the County has asked the Secretary of State for permission to conduct public recounts, at the County's expense, for identified close races most impacted by this delayed reporting, if requested by a candidate. The County has received preliminary approval to recount select races, if requested by a candidate, that no longer fall within the threshold for a mandatory publicly funded recount."
For a state legislative office, a publicly funded recount may occur if the margin of victory is lower than 0.5%.
The state will cover the recount that's expected in Scott County from the District 54A race in Shakopee.
On Friday, Scott County rescanned some ballots "due to a single ballot distribution error on Monday, November 4 at the Public Works facility and a subsequent ballot-scanning machine malfunction." According to Julie Hanson, Scott County elections administrator, about 24,000 absentee ballots were rescanned.
From the rescan, DFL Rep. Brad Tabke gained one vote — putting him at 14 votes more than Republican challenger Aaron Paul.
The Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State said in House District 14B, the recount process may begin after the state canvassing board meets to certify results on Nov. 21. The apparent losing candidate then has 48 hours to request a recount. In House District 54A, the recount process may begin after Nov. 13.