Persell Maintains Lead After District 5A Recount

The Beltrami County State Auditor’s Office has completed a recount of votes for the District 5A race between Republican Matt Bliss and DFLer John Persell.

Election day results from the race showed Persell just barely beating Bliss by eight votes, and Persell expanded that margin to 11 votes in today’s recount. The official recount was requested by Bliss late last month.

Each vote was counted today by hand by teams comprised of employees of the State Auditor’s office, election officials, township judges, and one appointed observer from both Bliss and Persell.

JoDee Treat, the Beltrami County Auditor/Treasurer says, “When we’re all finished counting the ballots, we will record all of the results – the hand-counted manual vote counts – record those into the Secretary of State’s website, and any ballots that are challenged will be sent down to the Secretary of State’s office and the statewide canvassing for this recount will be December 17^th. So at that point they will make the results official.”

The recount was publicly funded because the difference of votes between the candidates is less than one half of a percentage point.