Judge Denies Minnesota GOP’s Request to Overturn District 54A Election Results

(KNSI) — A judge has denied the Minnesota GOP’s request to nullify the contested victory of a representative and order a new election.

It happened in House District 54A in Scott County, where incumbent DFL Representative Brad Tabke won re-election over his Republican challenger Aaron Paul by 14 votes. This is the same district where 20 absentee ballots were thrown away before they could be counted. It was ruled that the Democrat likely won the seat, even with the missing ballots.

That prompted House Republicans to say they would not seat Tabke, even if a judge ruled he won.

The DFL issued a statement on the judge’s ruling: “The voters and the courts have both spoken, and it is time for Republicans to accept that they lost this election,” said Minnesota DFL Chair Ken Martin. “Defying the courts and the voters to overturn an election would be an outrageous and illegitimate abuse of power. House Republicans should come back from the brink and abandon this outrageous partisan power grab. A partisan vote by Republican legislators to overturn this election cannot be tolerated and will not go unanswered.”

House-speaker designate, Republican Representative Lisa Demuth of Cold Spring, issued her own statement, firing back, “The underlying facts of the case remain unchanged: there were 20 ballots destroyed in a race decided by just 14 votes. The judge relies on testimony from voters, while downplaying the inconsistencies and lack of absolute certainty that the correct set of voters was identified. Furthermore, allowing this decision to stand would set the precedent moving forward that voters must violate their fundamental right to a secret ballot in order to clear up cases where ballots are destroyed, and may increase the likelihood of bad actors choosing to destroy certain sets of ballots in tight races. Ultimately the Minnesota Constitution is clear that ‘Each house shall be the judge of the election returns and eligibility of its own members.’ We will evaluate this lengthy ruling and consider options in the coming days.”

The Legislature was set to start today with a 67-67 tie in the House, but the GOP has a 67-66 one-seat advantage after it was ruled that a Representative from another district was ineligible to hold office due to lying about where he lived. With the majority, House Democrats are staging a boycott of the first few weeks of the session to deny Republicans a quorum, thereby preventing them from electing officers and conducting business.

The GOP says they will show up, go about their business, and do what they were elected to do, with or without their counterparts. Sixty-eight people are needed for a quorum, and Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon says DFLers are within their right to hold a boycott, and he can prevent the Republicans from getting any work done.

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