Isaac Russell, who conceded to fellow St. Paul City Council candidate Saura Jost on election night, has asked for a full count of the election ballots in the four-way race for the Ward 3 seat, including reallocation of second-choice ballots.

“Saura has won this election,” said Matthew Sullivan, Russell’s campaign manager, on Thursday. “We conceded. It’s over. We want to see the final count just for confirmation and out of curiosity.”

Under the rules of ranked choice voting in St. Paul, a candidate for city council needs 50% of the vote to win outright. No candidate reached that threshold on election night, though Jost came closest by a healthy margin. The ward spans Highland Park, Macalester-Groveland and part of the West Seventh neighborhood.

On Tuesday, Jost landed 48.48% of the vote, or 6,390 votes, which is less than 200 votes shy of outright victory. Russell earned 30.25%, or 3,987 votes. Patty Hartmann came in third with 19.44%, or 2,562 votes. And Troy Barksdale earned 1.59%, or 210 votes. Write-ins accounted for .25%, or 33 votes.

On Friday, Ramsey County Elections workers will begin reallocating ballots by dropping the weakest vote-getter — in this case Barksdale — and moving his ballots to the other candidates’ piles, based on second-choice picks.

The process will then continue with Hartmann’s ballots until a candidate reaches the 50% threshold. With a total of 13,149 ballots cast in the race, a candidate would need 6,575 votes to win. If no one reaches that threshold, the top vote-getter wins.

Sullivan acknowledged that it’s unlikely that Russell would pick up more than 2,400 votes from ballots where voters chose Russell second after Barksdale or Hartmann.

In any event, “Patty Hartmann was telling people not to rank a second choice,” Sullivan said.

A call to Hartmann was not immediately returned on Thursday.

The Ward 3 race is not the only one that will be reallocated. Elections officials also will complete a similar tally in the eight-way Ward 1 race, where Anika Bowie led with 40% of the vote, and the six-way Ward 7 race, where Cheniqua Johnson led with 41% of the vote.

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