Slower ballot processing, expectation of instant results feed vote-count skepticism

First, there was the Hennepin County courier who left ballot cases in the open trunk of a van . Then it was shifting numbers on the secretary of state's website. And it took such a long time for Anoka and Ramsey counties' results to come in. Sherburne County's count seemed to keep changing. Then Scott County found some discrepancies in Shakopee, where a tight race could swing control of the state House.

Following his Election Day victory, President-elect Donald Trump has not been making an issue of election security, and there are no wild, unproven accusations of widespread fraud like in 2020. Still, confidence in election systems seems shaky. Questions can feel especially acute if you're a candidate who stands to lose.

Sue Ek, a St. Cloud-area Republican running for state House, went to bed on election night four votes ahead of DFL Rep. Dan Wolgamott, with the website display showing 100% of precincts reporting. She took a picture of the results on her laptop screen for posterity.

When she got up the next morning, Wolgamott was up by two dozen votes. By the end of the week, his lead widened to 191 votes, after Sherburne County uncovered a technical issue.

"The errors and discrepancies we've seen this cycle are intolerable and unacceptable. A free and fair election demands sunlight on the process," said Rep. Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, who leads the Republican caucus in the Minnesota House. "These incidents fuel distrust and raise questions about the integrity and accuracy of election results."

Minnesota Republican Party Chair David Hann put out a similar statement: "The current discrepancies and additional votes being added to the [race] in the last few days destroys the trust Minnesotans have in the election process and raises serious questions."

Part of the problem this year came from expecting to be able to see final election results right away. Results are transmitted to the secretary of state's website, and can look complete just a couple of hours after polls are closed.

But over and over since Nov. 5, election workers have said results posted on the secretary of state's website are "unofficial" until canvassing boards meet to certify results.

Small changes to unofficial results are common, according to the Secretary of State's Office, both because the systems depend in some places on imperfect humans typing numbers into computer systems, and because of technical glitches akin to a jammed printer.

Hanson said nonpartisan election officials take the work of checking and rechecking results seriously. Sometimes it means two numbers were transposed — for example, 84 was entered when the correct number is 48. There are always paper ballots to fall back on, to be counted over and over again until everyone is sure the numbers are right.

Another wrinkle this year was a longer delay in processing absentee ballots , which led to a few counties reporting results several hours later than expected. Anoka County's came around 2 a.m. the day after the election, one of the latest.

"A very large amount of absentee ballots dropped off at cities tonight is causing a delay in our reporting," read an Anoka County statement on election night. "We want our results to be 100% complete instead of releasing a partial count. It could be a couple of more hours."

In years past, absentee ballots had to be received by 3 p.m. Election Day, but this year, the deadline was moved to 8 p.m. People who waited to return their absentee ballots until Election Day had five extra hours, meaning less time for the election officials opening envelopes, checking to make sure signatures on the envelopes matched those of the registered voter, and double-checking with partisan absentee ballot judges, and finally feeding ballots into vote-counting machines.

On Wednesday, Scott County election officials explained they would recount all 21,000 ballots from the House District 54A. DFL Rep. Brad Tabke holds a 14-vote lead in the race, and if Republican Aaron Paul prevailed in the recount, it would give Republicans control of the state House. Scott County will also audit Shakopee's 10th Precinct to figure out why it had a record of receiving 20 more ballots than it has a record of counting.

How are ballots counted? Who is in the room? Who can observe what officials do when they find something amiss and have to count again? Will the recount be open for the public to observe?