A Minnesota city “likely disposed of” 21 missing ballots in a race that was decided for the Democrat incumbent by a margin of 14 votes, according to an investigation.

The county attorney for Scott County, Minnesota, said that the city of Shakopee “likely” tossed 21 ballots without counting them. While it is currently unknown how those votes would have broken down, the state House race for seat 54A — which could have determined party control for the Republicans — has been called for the Democrat.

The current makeup of the state House is a 67-67 tie. The investigation is ongoing.

“The preliminary investigation into the 21-ballot discrepancy hasn’t been determinative thus far, and it appears likely to be the result of human error that occurred during the collection of early absentee ballots at the City of Shakopee. This unfortunate situation resulted in a level of confusion that should not have occurred,” County Attorney Ron Hocevar said in a press release.

“Scott County has come to the conclusion that the ballots were likely disposed of while they were in their secrecy envelopes, after being removed from their signature envelopes but before being tabulated,” Hocevar wrote in a Wednesday summary of the preliminary investigation into the issue. “A request was made to the City for their secrecy envelopes, and the County was advised they had been thrown into the garbage.”

During an audit of the vote, Scott County officials noticed that some voters checked in to vote, but their ballots did not appear in vote totals. The summary noted that even if the ballots were found, it is “unlikely that their chain of custody can be proven to assure they have not been tampered with.”

A timeline of the facts was included in the preliminary findings:

On election day, after the polls closed, Scott County noted that the City of Shakopee was slow to report their final results. At 10:50 PM, Shakopee reported that it had 6,300 absentee ballots still in process; at 11:25 PM, the City reported they had only gotten through 2,400 of those ballots with two tabulators running. Scott County advised Shakopee to stop tabulating and the remaining ballots could be run through the County’s high speed tabulator. At around 12:20 AM on Wednesday, November 6, the County and City put the remaining ballots through the County’s tabulator. Upon completing that work, City staff confirmed that the total of the scanned ballots matched the amount of ballots that they should have reported. This was later found to be incorrect.

Republicans filed a contest to the election after incumbent Democrat state Rep. Brad Tabke ended up with a 14-vote lead over Republican challenger Aaron Paul.

“Today’s news confirms why we will be seeking an election contest to protect the integrity of the vote in District 54A with a new election,” House Republican Speaker-designate Lisa Demuth said. “With 20 ballots missing and confirmation from Scott County that they will likely not be recovered, it’s impossible to declare a winner with a 14-vote margin. We appreciate the efforts by Scott County to investigate this matter and be transparent about their findings.” 

According to a timeline curated by Townhall columnist Dustin Grage, two state House races flipped from Republican leads to Democrat leads “overnight” even though 100% of precincts were reporting.

By 10:45 p.m. on election night, Paul had a 360-vote lead with 100% reporting, but by 11:45 p.m. the results for that race were removed from the state secretary of state’s website, Grage wrote. After 2:00 a.m., Paul was shown to be losing by 13 votes.

Breccan F. Thies is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. He previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.