Court: No review of sealed Coleman-Franken absentee ballots
Who would have gained from votes in thousands of rejected absentee ballots in Minnesota's close 2008 Senate race will forever remain a mystery.
The Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a television station's attempt to gain access to the ballots.
Even if KSTP-TV and other Hubbard Broadcasting Corp. stations had prevailed, it wouldn't have changed Sen. Al Franken's 312-vote win over former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman. The ballots had been deemed flawed or improperly cast.
The high court said the sealed ballots "unambiguously" count as private information under the state's Data Practices Act.
KSTP sued for access in 2009, saying the goal was to examine how the election process worked in 2008, and where it didn't. A lower court initially granted access, but that was overturned on appeal.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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