A Minnesota state senator is asking for an explanation after his apparent primary election win turned into a loss early Wednesday morning, due to what he called a 1,400 to 1,500 vote “ballot dump.”

Both incumbent Sen. Paul Utke, R-Park Rapids, and challenger Rep. Mike Wiener, R-Long Prairie, reported being among those who relied on early reports Tuesday that Utke had won the Senate race with 100% of precincts reporting, only to find out on Wednesday morning that Wiener had pulled ahead.

Senate District 5 comprises all of Todd and Wadena counties, southern and central Hubbard County and parts of Becker, Cass and Morrison counties. The ballots reported on Wednesday morning came from Wiener’s home territory of Todd County.

Utke in an interview Wednesday said he was tracking the results on the Minnesota secretary of state’s website on election night and was finally able to relax after the website showed that all precincts had reported and Utke had won by 435 votes.

Then came the “big ballot dump,” Utke said, which was heavily tilted — by a 3- or 4-to-1 margin — toward Wiener, who picked up about 1,000 votes to win the race by 192 votes, Utke said.

Utke said that, in the past, he has seen minor changes in the final vote count after all precincts had reported, but nothing like this.

“We’ll be looking into everything,” Utke said. “Just to make sure it’s done properly, for transparency.”

Jolene Sabrowsky, chief deputy auditor-treasurer in Todd County, said in a written statement that an anomaly occurred in Todd County’s reporting of primary election results in the Republican race for state Senate District 5 on Tuesday.

According to Sabrowsky, “during the processing of the results files, our team inadvertently uploaded an incorrect results file, which was identified when balancing final voter counts to the paper reports,” she said in the statement. “The issue was identified, reviewed by staff and submission of the revised results file was posted at 12:17 a.m. Due to this file error, there was a brief time where vote totals were not displayed accurately on the state website.”

Wiener acknowledged that media reports on Tuesday night showed Utke winning, with 100% of precincts reporting.

“I went to sleep with that assumption,” Wiener said, “and (when I) woke up, and apparently the secretary of state website had been updated and showed me in the lead.”

The Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office did not respond to an emailed request for comment on Wednesday. The Todd County Canvassing Board will review unofficial results on Thursday, prior to final certification of the official results, Sabrowsky said.