The weirdness just keeps piling up. You’ve probably seen the latest headlines,
Felony charges: Hubbard County election judge allowed 11 unregistered voters to cast ballots
You read that correctly, a man in Hubbard County–in rural northwestern Minnesota, population around 22,000–has been charged with two felony counts over his mishandling of about a dozen voters/ballots in this month’s election.
Those 11 votes were never going to move any of the headline races in Hubbard County, where Republicans won all of the county’s partisan contests by 2 to 1 margins.
The same can’t be said in other counties. We’ve discussed the mandatory recount taking place in Scott County (Shakopee) where the Democratic incumbent state representative leads by just 14 votes, with another 20 votes or so said to be “missing.”
Or consider Sherburne County, another jurisdiction where Republicans routinely win races by margins of 2 to 1, or better.
On election night, the House District 14B (only partially in Sherburne) incumbent Democrat appeared to have lost re-election, based on “final” numbers shown at the MN Secretary of State website. The numbers changed in his favor after a series of “updates,” each of which was accompanied with a series of increasingly implausible explanations. Downballot races for city council and school board appear to also have been affected.
A county-paid hand recount will be conducted.
Another anomaly in Sherburne County has been brought to my attention. This one did not have any impact on the final result. State house district 27A resides completely inside Sherburne County, and the incumbent Republican easily won re-election.
Here are “final” numbers (all precincts reporting) posted on the morning after the election:
Here are the 27A numbers as they currently appear,
The first thing that jumps out is the disappearance of some 52 write-in votes. The Republican is still winning, but by a noticeably smaller margin. In the past 12 days, the Democrat has gained 1,200 votes and the Republican 1,112.
Where did these 2,312 votes come from? Digging into each of the 14 precincts comprising District 27A, the Democratic candidate topped out at less than 37 percent in the best performing one. There is no apparent source of votes within 27A that would produce a 52 percent Democratic result.
Late last week, the Minnesota Star Tribune posed the question,
What’s behind the accusations of ‘discrepancies’ in Minnesota’s election?
My question is, “Why do all the ‘discrepancies” move in one direction?