The Minnesota Republican Party scores a victory over who will review mail-in ballots in Hennepin County

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minnesota Supreme Court has ordered election officials in the state's most populous county to use a list submitted by the state Republican Party and select new members for a board that validates absentee ballots.

In an order issued late Tuesday, the court said officials in Hennepin County – home to Minneapolis and many of its suburbs – were required to appoint election judges from the party's list before cities could select from it and exhaust the number of people available . The court gave the district until Friday to comply with the request.

Previously, the county's postal voting commission was made up of four Democrats and one Republican.

Minnesota began in-person early voting and absentee voting on September 20. Tuesday's Supreme Court order, signed by Chief Justice Natalie Hudson, did not invalidate any of the more than 263,000 mail-in ballots the county had already received. More than 209,000 of those ballots were accepted by the current audit committee.

The Minnesota Republican Party and an allied group, the Minnesota Voters Alliance, asked the court to intervene after finding that no one on the Republican Party's list of more than 1,500 volunteers had been appointed to the Hennepin County mail-in voting board. The volunteers were selected from counties across the state and submitted their names to the Secretary of State's Office earlier this year. The Democratic Party in Minnesota has submitted its own list to the office, and election judges are to be selected from both parties' lists.

The absentee voting board consists of five election judges and several deputy county auditors. Hennepin County officials said in a court filing that 40 of the 45 cities across the county appoint their own election judges and have their own absentee voting boards.

County officials said municipalities exhausted the list of available election judges before Hennepin County could staff its own absentee ballot board. The county had over 6,000 election judge positions open. They said they used the authority given to them under state law to appoint board members who were not on the list submitted to the secretary of state's office.

Secretary of State Steve Simon argued in a lawsuit that the county had complied with state law, but the Supreme Court disagreed. It said the county must begin with names submitted by political parties to fill election board seats, although the order did not specifically say how many Republicans or Democrats should be appointed.

According to county records, the mail-in ballot board processes and counts all mail-in ballots submitted by U.S. mail, in person at the county courthouse in Minneapolis or at one of the municipalities without their own board.

State Republican Chairman David Hann called Tuesday's court decision “a major victory for election integrity in Minnesota” and said all counties should be informed.

“The court order made clear that there is no ambiguity in the law – Hennepin County cannot bypass the party’s list of election judges,” Hann said in a statement.

Hennepin County Auditor Daniel Rogan said in a statement that the county will send emails Thursday to people on the list to recruit election judges for the absentee ballot board. He said the Supreme Court's ruling was made on a narrow basis, noting that the court recognized that the board operated with sufficient partisan balance, as required by state law.

The secretary of state's office said in a statement that the ruling “provided clarity on a technical and previously unclear regulation” and will not delay ongoing processes to review mail-in voting.

Hann and other Republicans said at a news conference earlier this month that they knew of no other counties that had violated due process in staffing absentee ballot boards, but that they would not rule out the possibility of problems elsewhere. They said they initially looked at Hennepin County because of its size.

Hennepin County election officials had already come under fire after a private courier's vehicle picking up mail-in ballots from several communities was left unattended with its trunk open outside Edina City Hall for several minutes earlier this month. According to the county, security video showed that no one had tampered with the sealed ballots inside, that all ballots had been accounted for and that no new ballots had been inserted.

The courier company fired the driver.