ST PETER — After five attempts to get the Republican Party of Minnesota to pay its outstanding bill, Nicollet County Auditor Bridgette Kennedy resorted to capital letters and a threat on the latest invoice she mailed last week.

“FINAL BILL,” the invoice for more than $1,300 warned. “IF PAYMENT IS NOT RECEIVED, THIS BILL WILL BE TURNED OVER TO THE NICOLLET COUNTY ATTORNEY’S OFFICE.”

The bill is for labor and copying costs related to more than 3,000 pages of election-related documents demanded by the party in the wake of the narrow victory by Democrat Mark Dayton over Republican Tom Emmer on Nov. 2. The party put out similar requests to the rest of Minnesota’s 87 counties and many of those are also waiting to be paid five months later.

Some counties refused to do any work until they’d received payment, and Kennedy regrets she didn’t take the same approach.

“We just acted in good faith,” she said. “And see what that does?”

Kennedy said she not only hasn’t received a penny of payment on the $1,376.01 bill, she hasn’t received any replies or explanations at all to the multiple requests for payment.

“There has been zero response,” she said.

Republican Party Chairman Tony Sutton said Wednesday that the party is working steadily toward getting the bills paid and that all counties will eventually be reimbursed.

“The hold-up is we don’t have the money, and we’ve been paying them off as we get the money,” Sutton said. “Everybody will get paid.”

Sutton, who said the party is about halfway through the list of unpaid counties, glanced at the list and noted recent or impending checks for Sibley and Martin counties.

“I don’t even see Nicollet on the list here,” Sutton said. “Hold on, that means we haven’t gotten any kind of invoice from them.”

Moments later, he said he’d need to check with the party’s finance director to verify why the county wasn’t listed. And he said, again, that all counties will be paid.

“I appreciate their patience and understanding,” Sutton said.

County elections officials weren’t experiencing similar patience and understanding in November.

Fewer than six days after receiving the requests for thousands of pages of documents, Kennedy got a letter on Nov. 9 from GOP attorney Tony Trimble.

“If your office does not provide the requested data to which my client is legally entitled by the close of business on Thursday, November 11, 2010, we will immediately take any and all appropriate legal action under Minnesota Statutes Section 13.08,” Trimble wrote.

The party didn’t follow through on the threat to Nicollet County, but it did file suit against St. Louis and Pine counties on Nov. 12.

“The unacceptable foot dragging of St. Louis and Pine Counties cannot persist,” Sutton said in a press release.

Kennedy said the massive size of the Republican request — including numerous documents that needed to have private voter information removed — meant that it took weeks to compile.

“It was hundreds of hours of staff time,” she said. “Not only that, it was stressful time because of the elections going on, and the recount going on, and this added to that.”

Even the 3,000 pages represented only a portion of the precincts in Nicollet County. Work on compiling the data was halted when Emmer conceded the election to Dayton five weeks after the election.

If the entire Republican request had been completed, it would probably have totaled more than 10,000 pages and tripled the size of the bill the GOP was facing, Kennedy said. She compared that to the more modest paperwork requested in the 2008 recount between Al Franken and Norm Coleman, when the total bill for each side was less than $100.

The Democratic Farmer Labor Party — which requested counties provide them with a copy of everything prepared for the Republican Party — paid $1,000 on Nov. 22, four days after Kennedy requested a down payment of that amount from both parties. She received the final DFL payment of $376.01 on Dec. 23, two days after the precise cost had been sent to the parties.

Sutton said Democrats had the advantage of a wealthy self-financed candidate. And he discounted the idea that a key part of the Republican Party’s message — fiscal responsibility and not spending beyond one’s means — is undermined by a slew of unpaid overdue bills.

“Not at all. Everyone’s going to get paid,” Sutton said. “We’ll pay them off faster than Obama will pay off the national debt.”

And like the national debt, the Republican’s tab has grown with time. By $30.

“I added a finance charge to this latest notice,” Kennedy said.