In the five Minnesota elections Dakota County Auditor Michelle Blue has overseen, never has any canvasing board had an audience. Before 2020, few cared or even knew about the bureaucratic processes that play out after election day in order to ensure the election’s security and integrity. That was not the case this year in Dakota County.
In a windowless room on the first floor of the Dakota County Government Center, the Dakota County Canvassing Board met on Tuesday, Nov. 12 to review vote totals, randomly draw precincts to be recounted, announce winners of county-wide races, and prepare reports on election data including write-in candidates, individuals who registered on election day, and votes for constitutional amendments. The Canvasing Board was composed of Dakota County Commissioners Mike Slavik and Laurie Halverson, Lakeville Mayor Luke Hellier, District Court Administrator Holly Bohlken and Dakota County Auditor Michelle Blue.
Instead of the empty room that had characterized such meetings in years past, the Canvassing Board met before a group of two dozen residents who watched commissioners and county officials alike page through reports of vote totals.
“It’s great they are part of the process,” said Blue in reference to all the new faces at the meeting. After the reports were signed by the board, precincts were drawn from a bowl in order to randomly pick five to be recounted.
Based on the size of Dakota County, the Canvassing Board must choose a minimum of five precincts within the county to recount, though they are able to select more than that if they so choose or if municipalities ask to have their votes specifically recounted, which is generally uncommon.
While the Canvassing Board does not accept public comment, a single raised hand from the audience left the board looking amongst themselves before allowing the resident to speak. Eagan Resident Tom Lopac asked the board to increase the number of precincts in the recount, citing concerns over the number of mail-in ballots in the 2024 election. Lopac, who has spoken before several previous Dakota County Board of Commissioner meetings about the same topic, expressed concern of election integrity. In expanding the number of precincts recounted, Lopac was seeking “just a little more visibility.”
While election integrity has taken up more public thought in the wake of the 2020 election, Dakota County elections have been and continue to be incredibly accurate.
“99.99%,” said Director of the Dakota County Public Services and Revenue Division, Tom Novak, when the board asked about previous election issues.
The Canvassing Board moved forward with the minimum number of precincts to be recounted at five precincts, in part because of the cost. The municipalities chosen for the recount bear the costs of performing that recount, so for example, if a precinct in Eagan were to be chosen, “we are saddling the city of Eagan with additional costs,” said Blue.
While Blue was hesitant to provide an exact cost of a recount because of how much it can vary depending on the size of the precinct and number of votes cast there, a recent data point was that of the 2023 school board election recount. In the 2023 school board election where some 6,000 votes were cast, the recount cost the district more than $3,000.
That cost was, in part, the impetus behind shifting school board elections to even years in order to stop putting on expensive elections paid for by the school district.
The five precincts randomly chosen at the Canvassing Board meeting were Lilydale, New Trier, Randolph City, Apple Valley P-10, and Lakeville P-17. These precincts were recounted at the Nov. 14 Post Election Review.
Two days later the Post Election Review took place in the Dakota County Commissioner Board Room. Tables of partisan vote counters filled the room as the cage of ballots was wheeled up, unlocked and unsealed to be manually hand counted.
“This is simply to physically recount the ballots for selected races in selected precincts,” said Blue before the counting began. The people counting the votes are provided by the Democratic and Republican parties. Each party provides names of members who are able to participate in the recount. Third-party representation is not allowed.
The counters, two Republicans and two Democrats at each table, tallied vote totals for the presidential election, US Senate and US House of Representatives and compared those totals to the totals provided by the voting machines. Strict rules govern the counting process down to who can leave the table at one time in order to maintain party balance.
“I do want to note that occasionally it happens that there are minor vote changes, minor differences that we might find as we go and that’s okay. That’s part of the process,” said Blue. She explained that the optical scan of the voting machine can’t pick up if someone filled out their ballot incorrectly. The most common example, according to Blue, was someone changing their mind mid-voting, filling out the bubble for one candidate only to cross out that bubble or their name and fill out another bubble.
For this reason, Minnesota has strict rules about determining voter intent and state law demands that reports are filed about each ballot where intent was determined as well as tracking totals not just for each candidate, but also for underfilled or blank ballots as well as overfilled or defective ballots.
These mistakes, while not common, are “often enough that we notice,” said Sean Ree, one of the counters at the Post Election Review.
The accuracy of voting machines has always been near perfect as checked by manual counting: “There has never been a change in the winners as a result of these. We do see minor tallies change slightly. That’s okay. That’s not a problem,” said Blue.
The process was watched by more than a dozen residents from former election judges to non-partisan observers from the League of Women Voters to simply interested citizens. Handouts of voting laws and procedures were available for review along with the original vote tallies from the voting machines to be checked by the hand counting.
Election Systems Manager Matt Macekura pulled a black pen from the counting tables, yet another security measure for voter fraud. Counters and election officials only use red pens because voting machines will not count bubbles filled in with red ink. Ballots being reviewed can sport red-inked notes on them for this reason.
Minnesota Statute 206.89 details how errors, if any, are to be handled. The margin of error for precincts is determined by its size. For precincts with fewer than 1,200 votes, the results of the hand recount and electronic total can only differ by two votes; for precincts with 1,200-1,599 votes, the margin is three votes; for 1,600-1,999, the margin is four votes; and for precincts with 2,000 or more votes the margin is a difference of five votes.
If any of these thresholds are met, an additional three precincts must be recounted. If then further discrepancies are found, the third stage is for the entire county to perform a manual recount.
“To my knowledge, Dakota County has never had to go to that second level,” said Blue.
As the hand count got underway, placards with candidate names were lined up across the tables and Democrats and Republicans worked together to sort and count and recount and recount the ballots. The agreed upon totals were then checked against voting machine totals. New Trier, the smallest precinct selected in the recount, was quickly finished first. A cheer went up amongst the crowd as the first hand-counted total was found to match the voting machine’s numbers. It was the first of many ever-weakening cheers as the counting continued throughout the day.
“You lose concept of time,” said Macekura, noting that the counting can go on for multiple days at a time. This year, the Post Election Review ran for a mere eight-and-a-half hours, ending around 5 p.m. In the end, the “manual recount confirmed that our voting machines tabulated votes with 100% accuracy,” said Chief Communications Officer Mary Beth Schubert.
For more information about Dakota County elections, visit the Dakota County website at https://www.co.dakota.mn.us/Government/VotingElections/Pages/default.aspx
