MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minnesota Supreme Court says election officials in Hennepin County have to pick new board members to validate absentee ballots. Until now, the board has been made up of one Republican and four Democrats. Now the court has ordered the state’s most populous county to go back to a list of eligible election judges submitted by the state’s Republican Party and pick new members. The court said late Tuesday that Hennepin officials had a duty to appoint election judges off the party’s list before letting cities pick from it. Letting localities choose first had exhausted the list of eligible judges before the county picked its own board. The new court order does not invalidate any of the 263,000 absentee ballots already received.
