Republican State Rep. Mike Wiener ousted incumbent Sen. Paul Utke in a close race in north-central Minnesota's Senate District 5 in the Tuesday, Aug. 11, primary.
The local Republican Party has tried to beat Utke before, endorsing a primary challenger in 2022. This year, delegates endorsed Wiener, who has represented the southern half of the district in the Minnesota House since 2023.
Wiener beat Utke by less than 2 percentage points, receiving 208 more votes.
Neither candidate returned KAXE's requests for comment as of Wednesday afternoon.
Wiener dominated in the part of the district he already represents, including Long Prairie, Grey Eagle, Staples and Verndale. He received at least 60% of the vote in all but 20 of the 65 precincts in District 5B and lost only three of them.
Utke only lost in nine of the 78 District 5A precincts, winning Frazee, Menahga, Nevis, Park Rapids, Laporte and Pine River.
Hackensack, Pillager, Powers Township and Wadena's Precinct 2 were all evenly split between the two candidates.
Results flipped after results error corrected
Utke was initially reported as the winner, leading by a couple hundred votes after all precincts' results were in.
But the result flipped after Todd County corrected a reporting error just after midnight.
"During the processing of the results files, our team inadvertently uploaded an incorrect results file which was identified when balancing final voter counts to the paper reports," Todd County said in a statement.
"The issue was identified, reviewed by staff and submission of the revised results file was posted at 12:17 AM. Due to this file error, there was a brief time where vote totals were not displayed accurately on the state website."
Small errors like this aren't uncommon, and they are why all results are reported as "unofficial."
Cass County Elections Administrator Pamela Smith explained sometimes the mistake is as small as someone incorrectly checking a box as the county shares election results with the state.
"It's just a human clerical error," she said. " ... We don't actually call them official results until we've gone through everything with a fine-tooth comb."
Over the next couple of days, election officials will go through an extensive proofing process, reviewing the results that come from each precinct and comparing the machine data to the actual ballots.
"We start looking through things like that and really, really making sure that every single person and vote matches what our machine was told," Smith said.
The results are then presented to a canvassing board, which randomly selects some results to be checked once again, before the board certifies the results. Then the information is shared with the State Canvassing Board, which certifies statewide elections and legislative races that cover multiple counties.
"So there's all these checks and balances along the way," Smith said. " ... So it's a good thing."
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