Coleman reaches out to Franken

MINNEAPOLIS, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- Norm Coleman asked Al Franken Saturday to join in his call for 12,000 absentee ballots to be considered in the contested U.S. Senate election in Minnesota.

Coleman -- who has taken the election case to court after a recount put Franken ahead by 225 votes, following an election night count gave Coleman a 215-vote margin -- wrote a two-page letter to Franken and distributed it to the news media, the Star Tribune reported.

Coleman, a Republican who held the Minnesota seat for the past six years, wants Franken, his Democratic challenger, to agree that 12,000 ballots may have been wrongly excluded from the November election results and should be examined.

"If you feel that tactically you cannot join this effort," Coleman wrote Franken, "we would at least ask that your campaign does nothing to block this suit from moving forward or makes any public statements which could be construed as standing in the way of this suit moving forward."

There was no immediate response from the Franken camp, the Tribune said.

A three-judge panel Friday ruled against Coleman, who wanted a new inspection of ballots for evidence that many of them were improperly counted or wrongly rejected in the recount.

The trial on Coleman's challenge of the recount is to start Monday.