In another sign that the Minnesota gubernatorial race is far from over, Republican nominee Tom Emmer’s legal team has told the Associated Press that he will not be waiving a statewide automatic hand recount:
Attorney Tony Trimble says Emmer has already made up ground to Democrat Mark Dayton from election night totals. Emmer now trails Dayton by more than 8,700 votes, which is close enough for an automatic hand recount.
The state recount law provides for a full hand recount if the margin is within 0.5%, but does give an option for an apparently losing candidate to waive that process and call off the recount. But as we see, Emmer will not be exercising that option.
The current result gives Democratic former U.S. Mark Dayton a lead of slightly under 9,000 votes, or .42% in the most recent totals, a margin that many observers believe is highly unlikely to change. (The 2008 Minnesota Senate recount and legal contest between Republican Norm Coleman and the ultimately victorious Democrat Al Franken, which lasted for about eight months, only resulted in a net margin shift of only about 500 votes out of a larger overall turnout.)
It should be noted that Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s term is scheduled to end on January 3. If this process were to drag out — for example, with a months-long legal contest — Pawlenty would continue to serve as governor in the interim. And as a bonus for him, he would have a Republican-led legislature, which he never had during his two regular terms. It’s possible that this might not occur, though, due to Dayton’s lead being several dozen times greater than anything ever enjoyed by Franken or Coleman, and the state having a lot of recent legal precedents from the Senate race for any issues that might come up.
Also, as a fun fact, Emmer attorney Tony Trimble was previously involved in the 2008 Senate recount, as a lawyer for Norm Coleman — and his performance was at times less than helpful to his cause.
In other Minnesota Recount Part II news, Pawlenty met this morning with Emmer. He has another meeting scheduled for tomorrow with Dayton, having extended invitations to both candidates to discuss possible transitions.
Eric Kleefeld
Eric Kleefeld joined TPM as an intern for the final months of the 2006 midterm elections, and then kept showing up for work. His other interests include guitars, old comic books and the politics of various English-speaking countries.
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