The Best-Looking Man In Show Business Today has his eye on the still-undecided Minnesota Senate race, and files the following from Fox News:
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- A Ramsey County judge raised doubts Wednesday about the ability of elections workers to withhold data on voters with rejected absentee ballots, and he promised to rule later in the day on Democrat Al Franken's lawsuit seeking the information.
Judge Dale Lindman heard nearly an hour of arguments from lawyers for Franken, Republican Norm Coleman and Ramsey County elections officials. Coleman's campaign wants the data kept under wraps. The Senate race between Franken and Coleman is in a statewide recount.
Lindman voiced concerns about the campaigns contacting voters with disqualified absentee ballots, but he said he considered that a separate matter from the push to get the names, addresses and reasons for those in that situation.
"The privacy of the individual -- I respect that. But it's also the transparency of the process" at issue, Lindman said.
"How would that be a problem for the privacy of the voter who wants to protect the privacy of his vote but also doesn't want to be disenfranchised?" Lindman asked at one point.
The Franken campaign wants to know whose ballots were rejected and why. Ramsey County and many others have refused to disclose the information on grounds that it would violate voter privacy.
A ruling from Lindman would be binding only on Ramsey County, but Franken's lawyers say other counties could voluntarily comply.
Getting the data is only half the battle for Franken. His campaign is also asking a state elections board to include absentee ballots that were wrongly rejected in the statewide recount. The state Canvassing Board deferred action on the request Tuesday but pledged to render a verdict soon.
Franken attorney David Lillehaug said information supplied by other counties has revealed cases where voters felt their absentee ballots were erroneously disregarded.
"It is clear to us that mistakes have been made," Lillehaug told the judge.
Fourteen counties have released the data although two have now tried to retract it, Coleman's lawyer Fritz Knaak said. He didn't name them.
Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Darwin Lookingbill said information about ballots that remain sealed should stay private. Rejected absentee ballots are unopened. He also argued that voting absentee involves risks as officials work to prevent fraud and maintain secrecy.
"The ability to vote absentee is not a right rather it is a privilege," Lookingbill said.
After the hearing, Knaak sounded as though the ruling would go the Franken campaign's way and that both sides will get the data.
"We're not interested in receiving it. We probably are going to get it whether we want it or not. We don't intend to use it. We're not about the business of pounding on doors," Knaak said before jabbing at the Franken campaign's motives. "The reality is if they get the names and addresses that they want they're going to pound on people's doors and ask 'How did you vote?"'
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