A two-day hearing for the Senate District 27 election result was completed Friday night, after the election judge who burned 17 missing ballots finally agreed to testify.

“Everything in my mind got out in front of the judge. I’m satisfied,” former Austin City Councilor Tom Purcell, who filed the contest, said. “It seems it’s not so simple like people thought two weeks ago.”

Anoka County Judge Joseph Quinn, who used to be a DFL House member, will make a judgment Monday on this unprecedented case in Minnesota history, where missing ballots have a definitive answer to the election result.

“No one has been here before,” Purcell’s attorney Fritz Knaak, who also represented Sen. Grace Schwab in the recount, said. “No cases in the past give us an exact answer.”

In the final argument, Judge Quinn raised a point that a rule should be the same whether the missing ballots are 17 or 1,700, questioning the assertion by Knaak to adopt the recount result disregarding the 17 missing ballots. But, his same logic also makes it difficult to explain awarding the eight ballots to Sparks as the State Canvassing Board decided and DFL Dan Sparks side upholds.

“Cynicism is destructive,” Quinn emphasized his concern about the effect of this election and the importance of his ruling to the democracy of the state.

Austin Ward 2, Precinct 1 election judge Jeanette Dennison sat twice on the witness seat.

In the morning, Dennison took the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify about what happened in the election night. But, later in the afternoon, she agreed to talk after her lawyer Scott Richardson received a letter from the U.S. Attorney’s Office that guaranteed immunity from federal charges.

In the early morning following the election night, Austin City Clerk Lucy Johnson instructed her assistant Cheryl Hayes to exclude the absentee votes for late Senate Paul Wellstone from the tally because they were already counted as undervotes.

“I misunderstood what she (Hayes) meant,” Dennison said. She put the ballots in a brown plastic bag, brought them back home and burned in the fireplace “with no malice in mind.”

Dennison testified that she does not remember if the ballots were for Wellstone. “That was the pile of absentee ballots. That’s all I know.” She said she never opened the bag before burning.

The three-vote difference of the recount was widened to 11 by the State Canvassing Board ruling that awarded 12 to both Sparks and Schwab out of 32 contested ballots and eight additional votes to Sparks assuming they were among the 17 missing ballots.

Brian Rice, Sparks’ attorney, has been amplifying the assignment of eight votes based on the testimonies by Johnson and Hayes implying the missing ballots were cast by DFL supporters.

Knaak emphasized the theory has no grounds, and focused on the fact that Dennison was a DFL election judge. He said Dennison was an agent for the DFL party, and the destruction of ballots by her should not benefit Sparks. Instead, he proposed that the court should penalize the act by awarding all the 17 ballots to Schwab.

“If anybody is entitled to those votes, it is Schwab,” Knaak said. “Mr. Sparks cannot take any positive consequences in evidentially sense.”

“It’s just preposterous,” Rice objected to Knaak. “The DFL party has no right to approve or disapprove election judges.”

Rice also pointed out that election judge Sherri Forman, who worked with Dennison in the election night count, is a Republican judge. Dennison told Forman that she would burn the ballots when they were leaving the City Hall, but did not reveal the conversation until the investigation by the recount officials started Nov. 21. “That’s a Republican judge’s fault,” Rice said. “The two judges made the mistake.”

Besides the missing ballot issue, Judge Quinn will also have to go through each of 32 missing ballots as well as the argument about the court’s function in this election contest.

Knaak considers that the court has jurisdiction to decide the contest including an option to direct the State Canvassing Board to rescind the election result. Rice said the Minnesota Constitution and laws defines the court has no ability to resolve the contest, but functions merely as a fact finder for the Senate that has the exclusive authority to judge the election returns and the eligibility of members.

The certificate for Sparks is already issued and he is expected to swear in the Senate at noon Jan. 7.