Republican Aaron Paul contests Shakopee House election result, requests special election

The Republican candidate in a razor-thin Minnesota House race filed an election contest last week — seeking a new election — after Scott County officials announced that 20 absentee ballots were likely thrown away, accidentally, between the time they were submitted and Election Day.

After a recount in early November, officials declared that Democratic Rep. Brad Tabke of Shakopee was re-elected in House District 54A by 14 votes over GOP challenger Aaron Paul. A short time later, officials stated they were unable to locate at least 20 ballots. Scott County Attorney Ron Hocevar conducted a preliminary investigation and last week said the ballots were “likely in their secrecy envelopes when (they) were thrown away.”

An absentee ballot is in a “secrecy” envelope, which is nested inside the “signature envelope.” Election workers are tasked with approving or declining the signature envelope and, if approved, removing the secrecy envelope and setting it aside, thus preserving the voters’ secret ballot. But in this case, rather than removing the ballots from the secrecy envelopes and running them through the machine, they mistakenly discarded the secrecy envelopes without having removed the ballots, creating a 20-ballot discrepancy between signature envelopes and ballots.

Election officials say one additional absentee ballot is missing in another precinct.

The stakes of the missing ballots couldn’t be higher: The House will be evenly split 67-67 after the GOP successfully flipped three DFL seats on Nov. 5.

House leaders are currently negotiating a power-sharing agreement, but Republicans are eager to take full control, and this seat will be key in determining whether there will be a House majority when lawmakers gavel in on Jan. 14.

Republicans are also contesting the results of the race for a Roseville-area House seat. The Republican candidate there is alleging that the DFL winner does not live in the district.

In his notice of election contest, Paul states that Scott County election officials unlawfully called the race for Tabke despite knowing ballots were missing.

“This failure to secure and count the 21 missing absentee ballots is a serious and material violation of Minnesota Election Law,” the court filing states. “Indeed, since Representative Tabke’s currently announced margin of victory is less than 21 votes, this violation is of significant magnitude that it may determine the election outcome, resulting in the announced winner of the race being the candidate who the voters did not select.”

Paul asked the court to find that Scott County election officials violated the state’s election laws, which “directly impacted the outcome of the District 54A election.”

He also asked the court to prohibit Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon from issuing an election certificate to Tabke, and he asked the court to declare the seat vacant once Tabke’s current term ends and allow a special election to take place to fill the seat.

Speaker-designate Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, in a statement said the House DFL caucus expects Tabke will ultimately win.

“Rep. Brad Tabke won the election in District 54A by the count on Election Night and in the recount,” Hortman said. “We expect Rep. Tabke will prevail again in the election contest.”

The missing ballots were in precinct 10 in Shakopee, which Tabke won 731-534. Voters in the precinct supported Vice President Kamala Harris over President-elect Donald Trump 768-547.