Ramsey County sent out more than 1,000 ballots listing the wrong GOP candidate

More than 1,000 Ramsey County voters were sent absentee ballots with the wrong Republican candidate for the Minnesota House, say county officials, who are seeking immediate help from the state Supreme Court to fix the error.

Those ballots listed Beverly Peterson as the Republican running for the House District 67A seat from St. Paul; however, Peterson died in early August.

Under state law, the GOP was allowed to replace her on the ballot with Scott Hesselgrave in the race against DFLer Liz Lee. Lee beat incumbent Rep. John Thompson in the August primary.

But the ballots printed in 11 precincts still listed Peterson as the Republican candidate. County officials said Tuesday that they noticed the mistake when early voting began Sept. 23.

As of Monday, 1,077 absentee ballots with the error had already been issued to voters.

The county filed an error and omissions petition with the Supreme Court on Tuesday, but must continue sending out the incorrect ballots until the court determines how to remedy the issue.

"Ramsey County sincerely regrets this error and apologizes to both the voters of District 67A and the candidates impacted by this oversight," the 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. It's imperative that every vote count."

The county asked the court to approve a process that would allow those voters to get and resubmit a corrected ballot. Voters who think they got the wrong ballot can also cancel their ballot and replace it with a new one up until a week before Election Day on Nov. 8.

Hesselgrave, whose unusual path to the ballot already put him behind in the race for the longtime DFL district, said he didn't know about the error until his mother read about it in the newspaper Tuesday morning.

"It's a really big deal," he said. "I have to be on the ballot, and I was registered and certified and the certification was delivered to the county and the Secretary of State.

"[My campaign] is a long shot for a lot of reasons, even what led to me running begs for a healing message. Maybe this will help it get out there."