59B: Terra Cole to request a recount

2,360 North Minneapolis voters turned out for the hotly contested State House 59B DFL primary. Raymond Dehn beat Terra Cole by 19 votes. The margin of victory was .8%. .5% triggers an automatic recount.

Since the margin is greater than .5%, Cole would have to pay for the recount.

Cole's attorney has emailed Hennepin County Election Department regarding this. Once they certify the election, the Elections Department will determine how much a recount would cost and Cole would have a few days in which to provide a bond. Once she files the official request and provides a bond, a recount would take place.

The recount would need to find 20 votes counted for Dehn that are either invalid or should be counted for another candidate. Cole can't have any invalidated or counters will need to find more invalid votes for Dehn.

To put this in perspective, Norm Coleman led Al Franken on election night by 762 votes. After the recount, Franken won by 312. That's 1074 vote swing out of 2.88 million. That's a vote swing of 0.04%.

The recount process would need to find an unprecedented amount of errors in the counting process for Cole to pull this off.