Washington County: 2,600 votes not uploaded to the Secretary of State’s results website

About 2,600 votes cast in the primary in Washington County on Tuesday weren’t uploaded to the Minnesota Secretary of State’s results website on election night, county officials said Friday.

The oversight, which was corrected on Thursday, impacted vote counts, “but did not impact the final outcome in any race,” said Amy Stenftenagel, director of the county’s property records and taxpayer services division.

The results are now correct on the Secretary of State’s site, Stenftenagel said.

Here’s how it happened: The county has seven pieces of equipment that hold all the results for Election Day and early voting. Early Thursday, election officials discovered the results from one of the seven pieces of equipment were not uploaded on election night, she said.

Stenftenagel said staff members “called the candidates most impacted to notify them that their number of votes may change, but the outcome of races wasn’t affected,” she said.

The county’s five-member canvassing board met Friday morning and certified the election results to the Office of the Secretary of State, she said, adding that county officials “have already done work with our elections team to ensure this oversight doesn’t happen again.”

Originally Published: August 16, 2024 at 2:58 p.m.