Ramsey County prints ballots listing incorrect state Republican candidate
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Ramsey County says it accidentally printed ballots listing the wrong Republican candidate for a state representative position and issued over 1,000 of them on Friday.
The ballot listed Beverly Peterson instead of Scott Hesselgrave as the Republican Party candidate for state representative in District 67A, which is in the northeastern portion of St. Paul. Peterson died in August, and the Republican Party says it submitted a certificate of nomination and affidavit confirming Hesselgrave as the replacement candidate late that month. The error impacts all ballots for the 11 precincts in Ramsey County.
The issue was discovered on Friday, the first day of early voting in Minnesota.
By the end of Friday, 1,077 absentee ballots with the error had been issued.
Ramsey County says it started an internal review, and learned that the file with the correct candidate on it had not been sent to the printer earlier in the month. Elections officials reviewed the other ballots and determined that there were no other issues.
Ramsey County filed an Errors and Omissions Petition with the Minnesota Supreme Court, which has the authority to figure out how to resolve the issue. Until a resolution is found, voting must continue using the incorrect ballots. Ramsey County says they're asking the court to approve a process that would allow voters who cast a ballot with the wrong candidate to obtain corrected ballots.
"Upon learning of this error, we immediately began an internal audit to identify where the error occurred and today formally began the legal process to resolve the issue," Ramsey County said in a statement. "Ramsey County elections staff is preparing to implement a resolution as soon as one is identified by the court and is taking steps to update internal procedures to ensure an error does not happen again."
"This is a sad example of a failed election administration on the part of both Ramsey County and Secretary of State Steve Simon," the Minnesota GOP said in a statement.
Voters who cast absentee ballots are able to request a new ballot up until one week before election day.