Emmer files frivolous challenges in Hennepin County while GOP hints at election lawsuit

The second day of the Minnesota gubernatorial recount focused on two counties, Hennepin and Ramsey, where the bulk of ballots remaining to be counted exist. Hennepin County officials told reporters Tuesday that the campaign of Republican Tom Emmer was engaged in numerous frivolous challenges to ballots. Meanwhile, party chair Tony Sutton told the Associated Press that the Republican Party may press for a court challenge once the recount has concluded.

According to Hennepin County Elections Manager Rachel Smith, the Emmer team has challenged 927 ballots since the recount began in that county on Monday; of those, 894 were frivolous challenges. The team of DFLer Mark Dayton has made 13 challenges deemed frivolous.

“We are increasingly getting concerned about the time it is taking to process those challenges,” said Smith. “In one precinct we had over 100 frivolous challenges.”

She told reporters that her staff had overheard the Emmer team telling their challengers that they need to increase their challenges.

“We are trying work with the Emmer campaign to reduce the number of challenges,” said Smith, noting that the Emmer campaign has so far refused to withdraw any of his challenges deemed frivolous.

“It seems a bit unnecessary to be labeling all these ballots, and we would like explanation for why they are being challenged,” she said.

But despite the additional time needed to process a large number of challenges by the Emmer team, Smith said the process has “certainly been very respectful, and we will continue to work with both the Emmer and Dayton campaigns.”

Ken Martin, spokesman for the Dayton team said, “Things are going smoothly.” He said Dayton has gained a net of 205 votes so far, expanding his lead to 8,975.

He did, however, criticize Emmer’s frivolous ballot challenges, which total 1,228 to Dayton’s 33.

“It seems to me a lot of these challenges so far are beyond just frivolous,” he said. “Our concern is that we are wasting time.”

He continued, “If there’s a legitimate challenge, each side has the right to do that, and some of the frivolous challenges yesterday were absurd and they unfortunately are wasting people’s time.”

The situation in Hennepin County contrasted with that of Ramsey County, where Elections Manager Joe Mansky said the process has run smoothly and the number of challenges has been low.

He said there was “nothing that would be out of ordinary or alarming in any sense. I think the attorneys for the two sides have been very respectful.”

Ramsey County has decided to sent all challenges, frivolous or not, to the state canvassing board.

The county has recounted close to 80,000 ballots over the last two days and is on track to finish by Friday’s deadline, said Mansky.

But while the recount continues, GOP chair Tony Sutton told the Associated Press that a court challenge following the recount may be in the works. Such an action could possibly delay the seating of a governor past the start of the new legislative session.

“There’s definitely some issues that merit review,” he said, including reconciliation of ballot counts in precincts, an issue that the party brought to the Minnesota Supreme Court and which the court quickly rejected. Sutton also said that isaues with vouching could be part of a lawsuit.

He said that Emmer, not the party, would have the final say.