Ventura backs Horner
IST. PAUL - Independence Party gubernatorial candidate Tom Horner has won the endorsement of former Gov. Jesse Ventura, who was elected 12 years ago as a third-party outsider.
Horner's campaign announced the endorsement Friday, citing an interview Ventura gave the Pioneer Press.
The newspaper quoted Ventura on Friday as saying, "I urge people -- if they truly want change, it's in their power -- shock the world again. Vote Tom Horner in as governor."
Ventura, who served as governor from 1999 to 2003, was the Independence Party's first candidate to be elected Minnesota's governor.
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Ventura was the state's first Independence Party governor, upsetting the political establishment with his outsider win in 1998. He served a single term.
Horner is running against Democrat Mark Dayton and R
Bachmann pulled from vote register
Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann had her name removed from Minnesota's public list of registered voters for privacy reasons, the St. Cloud Times reported Friday.
Early this year, Bachmann raised privacy concerns about the U.S. census.
Her removal from the voting list means state officials have no public record of when she voted. Her election opponents, Democrat Tarryl Clark and Independence Party candidate Bob Anderson, and her seven Minnesota colleagues in the U.S. House are listed.
Bachmann spokesman Sergio Gor told the paper that she is a registered voter who has voted regularly. He said she viewed the request as a privacy issue.
State law allows voters to remove their name for their own or their family's safety, but Gor told the paper Bachmann's safety had not been threatened when she made the request.
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43,000 vote absentee so far
Minnesota election officials have accepted more than 43,000 absentee ballots, with a dozen days to go before the election.
Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said Thursday that election officials have sent more than 83,000 absentee ballots to voters who requested them. Minnesota law allows absentee voting for a short list of reasons, including travel plans, illness or religious observances.
The number of returned ballots can't be easily compared to absentee voting in past years because election officials usually waited until Election Day to process those ballots until a new law took effect this year.
Ritchie spokesman John Aiken said 1,625 absentee ballots have been rejected so far. Voters can redo rejected ballots so they will be counted.
Absentee voting continues in city and county offices through business hours the day before the election. In some cases, voters can cast absentee ballots on Election Day.
Girl to sing anthem for Obama
An 11-year-old who attends a Bird Island, Minn., school has been invited to sing the national anthem when President Barack Obama makes a campaign visit to Minneapolis today.
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McKaia Ryberg, a sixth-grader, was "discovered" by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton when she sang the national anthem for a benefit he attended in March, according to her mother Sandy Ryberg. Her parents, Brian and Sandy Ryberg, live and farm in the Buffalo Lake area.
Sandy Ryberg said they received a call recently from Dayton's office asking whether their daughter would sing the national anthem for the president's visit.
They also asked if she would be comfortable singing before a crowd of 20,000.
Her mother said her daughter has performed before crowds of 1,000 and 3,000, and she quickly responded: "What's a few thousand more?"
Sandy Ryberg said their daughter's musical talents are hers alone. She's very musical, her mother said, adding: "She just has the gift."
