Regarding the way in which the Senate District 27 election was decided, justice Sam Hanson put it best:

&uot;I don’t find it wholly satisfactory, but I don’t know of any wholly satisfactory solution to this problem,&uot; Hanson said.

The 17 missing ballots from Austin, in a race that came down to just a handful of votes, ensured that there would be no perfect solution. Any course of action the Minnesota Canvassing Board had taken could have been called into question.

The board ended up counting Dan Sparks’ total from election night &045; before he lost eight votes in the questioned precinct during the recount &045; and used Grace Schwab’s post-recount total, which was 13 votes higher than her election-night total. In effect, that meant eight of the missing ballots ended up in Sparks’ column, even though there is no way to know for sure if any of those ballots were his.

But realistically, it’s reasonable to assume that 8 of the 17 votes &045; less than half &045; were cast for Sparks in that precinct. Sparks won Mower County by a sizable margin, and the likelihood is that the destroyed ballots were some of those cast for Sen. Paul Wellstone, which increases the likelihood that those voters chose Sparks. In addition, Sparks lost eight votes in that precinct during the recount, which is unheard of; a candidate almost always gains votes, if anything, during a recount, suggesting that at least eight of the missing votes belonged to him.

Even if the remaining nine missing ballots were assigned to Schwab, she still would not have made up the 11 votes by which she trailed Sparks in the final tally. If the eight votes were deducted from Sparks’ total, and election authorities were to effectively ignore the 17 ballots, Sparks still would win by three votes.

Unfortunately, there don’t appear to be other reasonable options. Even if a special election were held, it could easily be questioned because the voter turnout would be much lower than it was during the general election. Letting a much smaller percentage of the population make the decision isn’t fair, either.

The canvassing board weighed its options and came away with the best compromise available to them. Short of conjuring up the missing ballots, which we now know have been burned, there wasn’t much more they could do.

Tribune editorials represent the opinion of the newspaper’s management and editorial staff.