Minneapolis / St. Paul - City Pages - The Blotter - Former Franken worker participated in ballot recount

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Former Franken worker participated in ballot recount

By Emily Kaiser in Al Franken

Monday, Nov. 24 2008 @ 2:30PM

Image by Dan Corrigan for City Pages

As if the Republicans in Minnesota need another story to help cast doubt on the recount system. Well, now they have it. A former Al Franken volunteer did some doubledipping during the Senate recount against Norm Coleman. Despite her previous activity with the Franken campaign, the woman also volunteered as a non-partisan worker during the recount, according to the Associated Press.

More from the AP:

A woman who volunteered to help count ballots in the U.S. Senate recount in Wilkin County probably would not have been allowed to do so if the county auditor had known that she had also worked for a Senate candidate in Otter Tail County. "Had I known that, she probably wouldn't have been part of the team," Wilkin County Auditor Wayne Bezenek, told The Forum of Fargo, N.D. "That would have been the right thing to do." Maggie Vertin spent two days last week in Fergus Falls for Otter Tail County's recount as an observer for Democrat Al Franken. She was also one of eight volunteers who assisted with the Wilkin County effort in Breckenridge on Saturday.

Vertin says she set her politics aside when she was helping with the recount, but some Republicans cast doubt on her confidence.

"I don't understand how you can switch from being partisan one day to being neutral today," one Coleman observer said Saturday. The Wilkin County Auditor and Secretary of State Mark Ritchie both expressed no concern now that the woman's job is done.