Democratic Socialist Robin Wonsley Worlobah was once again declared the winner in the race to represent the Second Ward on the Minneapolis City Council after the completion of a recount Wednesday.
An attorney for runner-up Yusra Arab, the DFL candidate who requested the recount, said they are now considering whether to file a legal action contesting the election.
Nearly 9,800 votes were cast in the race and the latest tally has the top two candidates just 13 votes apart. Just over 60 absentee ballots were rejected, and candidates can receive only limited information about them, unless they go to court.
"It's a real tough one," said Brian Rice, Arab's attorney.
Davis Senseman, an attorney for Wonsley Worlobah, said they're confident in her status as the winner.
"I think as far as we're concerned, as far as Robin is concerned, we're done," Senseman said. "She'll be sworn in, in January. She's been participating in orientation. We knew going into it that Minneapolis elections officials do a remarkable job. The recount and the canvass pointed all that out."
A total of 63 absentee ballots were rejected. Wonsley Worlobah's campaign said they received information from elections officials Wednesday afternoon that showed the following: Of those 63 ballots, two were submitted by the same person. Seventeen people ultimately succeeded in voting another way, likely by submitting a corrected ballot or voting in person at the polls. Of the remaining ballots, 32 were rejected because they arrived late, and 13 were rejected for other unspecified reasons.
Rice said Wednesday night that he was working to review the new data. He said earlier in the day that they believe about 25 of the rejected ballots might have been submitted by people of East African heritage, based on their last names.
"It does seem strange that 40% of the rejected absentee ballots came from the East African community," Rice said. "I think that certainly is a matter that deserves investigation."
Senseman countered: "We don't believe there was some conspiracy to disenfranchise someone. If you send in an absentee ballot that is not in accordance with the statute, then they have an obligation to reject it," and to alert voters so they have a chance to correct it.
It's too early to tell how many of the rejected ballots would have swung to Arab, Wonsley Worlobah or other candidates. Minnesota law prohibits rejected absentee ballots from being "opened or subject to further review except in an election contest."
The race for the Second Ward was one of the tightest in city memory. The full recount, requested by Arab's campaign, was the first in a ranked-choice election in Minneapolis, which began using that system in 2009.
Election workers looked at each ballot to see if voters listed either Arab or Wonsley Worlobah in the first-choice column and, if so, allocated those votes to the respective candidates. If voters selected other, eliminated candidates as their first choice, elections workers looked to see if either Arab or Wonsley Worlobah was listed as their second or, eventually, third choices.
Throughout the process, representatives for both Arab and Wonsley Worlobah had the chance to argue over whether certain ballots should be disqualified. The reasons for the challenges varied. In some cases, voters had stray marks on their ballots. In others, they had inappropriately marked multiple candidates in one column. Representatives for the campaigns sometimes argued whether smudges or handwriting on the ballots constituted an identifying mark that could disqualify it under state law.
The City Council had the final say on which ballots should be counted and met Wednesday morning to evaluate each challenged ballot individually. The final tally changed by a six-vote margin, with Wonsley Worlobah leading by 13 votes instead of the original 19. In the end, Wonsley Worlobah logged 4,055 votes to Arab's 4,042 votes.
Wonsley Worlobah is set to fill the seat Council Member Cam Gordon held since 2006. Gordon finished third in his re-election bid last month.
