Minneapolis elections officials finding few errors on ballots

Minneapolis city elections officials say so far they have not found more errors on ballots than they usually do.

The city is hand counting the ballots cast last week in the city's first ever election using instant runoff voting. The system allows people to select a first, second and third choice for an office. Interim elections director Pat O'Connor said, so far the counters haven't run into any big snags.

"We're astounded, absolutely astounded," O'Connor said. "We were pleased originally that we could get it all done by December 21, and it appears now that based on our experience that we'll be well ahead of that."

O'Connor said the hand count is going fast primarily because few voters turned out for the election.

"We had originally planned and sequenced the whole thing based on a turnout of 70,000 and 75,000, which was turnout in the past couple of races," he said. "I think eight years ago it was 90,000. Four years ago it was 70,000; so we picked 75,000 to plan around. We were very surprised at 46,000."

O'Connor also says the count has gone faster than expected because so many voters didn't choose more than one candidate and that results for half of the city council races should be completed by the end of this week.