By Albert Lea Tribune and Associated Press

In a tiny county far from the expected hotspots in the Minnesota governor’s race recount, election officials found themselves dealing with campaign representatives determined to challenge votes.

More precisely, volunteers for Republican Tom Emmer moved Monday to put the brakes on votes headed for Democrat Mark Dayton’s column. In all, Emmer’s team tried to send 423 of the roughly 6,300 ballots cast in Renville County to a challenge pile, baffling Dayton’s campaign and the local officials.

“We had one bona fide challenge,” said county auditor/treasurer Larry Jacobs, who described how an Emmer representative apologized for “what I’m instructed to do.” The 422 others were classified as “frivolous.”

Dayton led by about 8,800 votes coming into the recount, meaning Emmer has more incentive to shake up the count.

In the afternoon, election judges and campaign observers at the Freeborn County Courthouse were back in the Freeborn Room to begin the hand recount of the very same 13,565 ballots cast in the Nov. 2 general election in Freeborn County they had counted that morning in the House District 27A race.

Going into the recount, Democrat Mark Dayton was leading Republican candidate Tom Emmer by a slim 8,770 votes statewide.

Minnesota law states an automatic recount is triggered when there is a margin of victory of 0.5 percent or less.

The governor’s recount in Freeborn County, which started at 1 p.m. Monday, wrapped up at about 4:15 p.m.

After the ballots were hand counted, Dayton received 6,492 votes and Emmer received 5,285 votes in Freeborn County.

Freeborn County Auditor-Treasurer Dennis Distad reported that no votes were challenged, and Dayton picked up two votes.

He said these were ballots where the ovals had not been filled in properly — voters had used check marks and X’s.

Distad said there were no challenges or problems and everything went smoothly with the recount.

In Mower County, it was reported that Dayton gained 17 votes and Emmer’s camp challenged four votes.

Joe Marble, a research consultant with the GOP Caucus, attended portions of the recounts in both Mower and Freeborn counties. He said some counties may take more than one day to perform recounts because of size. He pointed out that Hennepin County specifically had 15 tables set up for recounts and because of its population, he estimated about 20 percent of all the votes would come from that one county alone.

The new governor is slated to take office Jan. 3, but that could be delayed if either side files a legal challenge to the recount result. Emmer reported last week that he won’t go to court to challenge the results of the upcoming recount if it’s clear he can’t win.