The fact that more than 400 mailed ballots arrived at the Carlton County Auditor’s office after the Jan. 22 primary election has not gone unnoticed, especially since the gap between the two DFL candidates was only 233 votes.

Carlton County Auditor Paul Gassert said his office received five ballots on Jan. 23, 250-plus on Jan. 24, 50 on Jan. 25, another 50 over the weekend and another dozen or so on Monday, Jan. 25. As of Tuesday, they were more than 400 unopened mail-in ballots that were not counted.

Gassert isn’t expecting the turnaround for the special election to be much better than...