Minnesota is beginning its gubernatorial recount today –Â its second statewide recount in two election cycles, following the even closer and heavily litigated Senate race from 2008.
Democratic nominee Mark Dayton leads Republican Tom Emmer by 8,770 votes, or 0.42%. While this is within the 0.5% needed to trigger a statewide recount, many observers have doubted that Emmer could pull ahead, as Dayton’s lead is probably too wide to be reversed barring any surprising discoveries in the hand count. For example, the 2008 Senate recount resulted in a net margin shift of only a few hundred votes between Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken.
However, a possible drawn-out legal contest could potentially result in Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty staying in office in the interim, with the opportunity to work with a newly elected Republican legislature.
The State Canvassing Board’s official timeline for the recount, as was proposed by Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (D), calls for the total process to be concluded in mid-December. The counties will conduct the hand counts of the ballots this week, with the state board then meeting next to adjudicate ballots where the local official’s call was challenged by a campaign representative — either on the basis of determining voter intent, or if the ballot should be disqualified on the basis of the voter signing it or otherwise placing a key identifying mark.
A big question, then, is how many challenges will be made, and whether the system will be clogged up with thousands of frivolous challenges as occurred last time. As we reported last week, the board grappled last week with the question of how to define a frivolous challenge, and how to deal with ballots where a challenge was made that the local officials deemed to be frivolous. The compromise they ultimately found was that such challenged ballots would still be counted, but also set aside for potential review of the challenge later on. However, challenges that were not deemed as frivolous would be handled normally — being set aside and kept out of the count until next week.
As the Star-Tribune reports, Ramsey County (St. Paul) election manager Joe Mansky appears ready to waive entirely that authority to declare challenges frivolous, barring some surprises:
“I don’t think we’re going to have any frivolous challenges,” he said, adding that last week’s state canvassing board had left the impression with him that such challenges would be limited by both campaigns. “That’s my inclination, yes (to send all challenges to the state), unless something is really way out of bounds. (But) I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
In addition, as the Pioneer Press reports, there is some possibility that there could be fewer problematic ballots overall. The question is whether the lower turnout in the midterm election will mean less challenged ballots — or whether some of the problems from 2008, both accidental and intentional, will persist:
Not everyone is so hopeful. The infamous Lizard People write-in ballot came from Bemidji in Beltrami County, and Auditor/Treasurer Kay Mack said not much could change a mischievous mind.
“I don’t personally think that a recount is going to change people’s quirkiness,” Mack said. “That Lizard People guy, he got his honks out of it. It wouldn’t surprise me if he did the same thing with his ballot from here to eternity.”
Lower turnout than in the 2008 presidential election also leads some to believe there will be fewer problems this time. Turnout in 2010 lagged about 20 percentage points behind two years ago.
“The turnout that we had (in 2010) is probably getting close to our core electorate, which is the people that vote all the time,” Mansky said. “It should result in better-marked ballots, and the consequence of that is we should see fewer challenges.”
The deadline for the counties to finish the hand counts is December 7. As the board discussed last week, there will also be some checking in throughout this week, to see how many challenges have been made, and whether the system is being clogged up with frivolous challenges. Both sides’ attorneys — which includes veteran 2008 attorney Marc Elias on Dayton’s side, and former state Chief Justice and 2008 Canvassing Board member Eric Magnuson on Team Emmer — pledged at last week’s meeting to refrain from frivolous challenges. Let’s see how that works out.
