Eric Kleefeld December 1, 2010, 4:46 PM

Here is the latest update on the Minnesota gubernatorial recount, where Democratic former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton entered the recount leading Republican state Representative Tom Emmer by 8,770 votes.

(See here for an overview of their methodology, and both the necessary caveats and points in its favor, plus a primer on the issue of how ballots that are challenged by a campaign end up being handled.)

Team Dayton also says that the Emmer campaign has lodged 2,141 challenges that have been deemed frivolous by the local officials, to only 39 frivolous challenges from the Dayton election observers. These votes will be included in the recount totals, but the ballots have also been set aside and could be reviewed later.

Of the challenges that have been treated as legitimate at the counting tables, Team Dayton’s numbers say that 635 have been lodged by Team Emmer, to 145 from the Dayton campaign. These votes will be taken out of the count, pending adjudicating by the canvassing board or the withdrawal of any challenges by the respective campaigns. Thus, it might appeared that Emmer will have gained a few hundred votes — but still not nearly enough to narrow the gap.

Jay Weiner, who has written an extensive book on the 2008 Minnesota Senate recount, has a report on how Ramsey County election manager Joe Mansky, a leading election official in the state, is taking a different approach to handling the recount from his colleagues in the state. He is not declaring challenges to be frivolous, but is instead working with the campaigns to try to get them to withdraw challenges.

The Emmer campaign is not exactly getting along with Rachel Smith, the election manager in heavily Democratic Hennepin County (Minneapolis). As the Star Tribune reports, Smith had declared over 900 challenges from Team Emmer to be frivolous as of Tuesday. In response, state GOP chairman Tony Sutton declared that Smith was appeared to be “definitely hostile to our right to challenge.”

In addition, state GOP chair Tony Sutton is leaving open the possibility of contesting the election result in court: “We think there are some legitimate issues.”

A possible legal challenge is a key issue surrounding this recount. Although Dayton’s lead 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. 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.

2010 elections, MN-GOV, Mark Dayton, Tom Emmer