Minn. Supreme Court orders Ramsey County to send corrected ballots after listing dead GOP candidate
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- After Ramsey County printed ballots listing the wrong Republican candidate for a state representative position, Minnesota's highest court has ordered new ballots be printed.
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 the first day of early voting in Minnesota last month. Nearly 1,200 absentee ballots with the error had been issued before it was spotted, the county said.
Ramsey County filed an Errors and Omissions Petition with the Minnesota Supreme Court, and the court issued its ruling Monday.
Per the court's ruling, the county will correct the error, and all ballots going forward will correctly list Hesselgrave as the Republican candidate. The county will also need to mail the corrected ballot to all voters who previously received an incorrect absentee ballot.
The county instructed anyone with an incorrect ballot to discard it.
Those who received the incorrect ballot and already returned it have three options, per the county:
- Spoil the original ballot by calling the Ramsey County Elections Office at 651-266-2171. This must be done by Nov. 1, one week before Election Day. The original ballot will be thrown out, and voters will be able to fill out a replacement ballot.
- If someone voted for Peterson and chooses not to spoil their ballot, their vote in that racewill not be counted. Votes for other offices on the ballot will be counted.
- If someone voted for a candidate other than Peterson and chooses not to spoil their ballot, all votes on the ballot will be counted.
Ramsey County issued the following statement after the Supreme Court's ruling:
"Ramsey County sincerely regrets this error and apologizes to both the voters of District 67A and the candidates impacted by this oversight. We are grateful to the Minnesota Supreme Court for making a swift ruling on this issue, and we are in the process of implementing the resolution immediately. It is critical that every vote counts."
