SHERBURNE COUNTY, Minn. — Sherburne County officials have announced when the recount for the crucial MN House seat in district 14B will be held.
The winner of the recount could determine which party controls the Minnesota State House of Representatives.
The recount for the House 14B race will be on Nov. 25 at 10 a.m. in the Maple Room of the Government Center in Elk River, according to a release from the county.
Democratic incumbent Dan Wolgamott leads Republican Sue Ek by 191 votes. Due to an issue with results on election night, Sherburne County says they will cover the cost and hand recount the voters so there is complete transparency.
After preliminary results from election night, the Minnesota House was split evenly with 67 DFLers and 67 Republicans.
At one point on election night with 100% of precincts reporting, unofficial results showed Ek winning by just 4 votes. Then shortly after, Wolgamott led by 28.
So what happened?
On Nov. 9, 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."
The District 54A race in Shakopee is also headed for a recount, where Democratic Representative Brad Rabke leads Republican challenger Aaron Paul by only 14 votes.
