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Mark Zdechlik
St. Paul, Minn.

Emmer withdraws most ballot challenges in Minn. governor's race

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Attorneys for Republican Tom Emmer have withdrawn the vast majority of challenges to ballots they made last week during the recount of votes in the governor's race.

The State Canvassing board now has just 181 ballots to review, 91 from Democrat Mark Dayton's side, 90 from Emmer's side.

The number dropped dramatically after Emmer withdrew 671 challenges and Dayton pulled back 88.

And there are fewer than 30 other ballots still contested by Emmer even though local officials called the challenges frivolous. The board has not yet decided whether it will look at those.

Even if Emmer won all of his challenges, including the ones ruled frivolous, he would remain more than 8,500 votes behind Dayton in unofficial results.

The canvassing board is set to begin ruling on ballot challenges tomorrow. It had set aside three days for the task, but likely won't need that much time, because so many ballot challenges have been withdrawn.

The board ruled on more than 1,300 challenges in four days during the 2008 Senate recount.