St. Louis County has its work cut out for it in next week's recount of 8th Congressional District ballots.
County Auditor Donald Dicklich figures employees will be working into the night multiple days to meet a deadline of noon Thursday.
"We've got a situation where we've got 30 percent of the ballots," Dicklich said.
The recount in Minnesota's 8th District race begins Monday in most of the 17 counties that make up the district, said the Office of Minnesota Secretary of State in a news release Wednesday.
With more than 111,000 votes cast in the Nov. 8 election, St. Louis County has by far the most ballots to review.
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- PREVIOUSLY: 8th District readies for recount
Republican challenger Stewart Mills formally requested the recount during Tuesday's State Canvassing Board meeting in St. Paul. U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan, DFL-Crosby, defeated Mills in the Nov. 8 election by 2,009 votes among the nearly 357,000 cast.
"This will be not quite 13 years for me in this position and this will be our fifth recount," said Dicklich, citing the 2010 gubernatorial recount that confirmed Mark Dayton's election over Tom Emmer and the 2008 U.S. Senate recount that confirmed Al Franken's election over Norm Coleman.
The 0.56-percent margin in the 8th District is greater than the 0.5-percent threshold that would have triggered an automatic recount under state statute. Since the margin is over the threshold, the recount will cost the Mills campaign $102,053, said Ryan Furlong, spokesman for Secretary of State Steve Simon, in the news release.
The recount in St. Louis County will take place at the courthouse in downtown Duluth.
Throughout the Northland, Carlton, Cook, Itasca and Koochiching counties will also begin recounts Monday. Lake County will begin its recount on Tuesday.
Ballots will be counted by employees associated with the county auditor offices of each county.
Each campaign will be allowed one volunteer at each recount table, Dicklich said. Challenged ballots will be reviewed first on site by the county auditors. Those ballots that meet criteria for having potential irregularities will be collected for examination by the State Canvassing Board, which is made up of Simon and four judges with the Minnesota Supreme and district courts.
Dicklich said the State Canvassing Board is expected to announce the results on Dec. 12.
