ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - The judges in Minnesota's U.S. Senate trial said in a preliminary ruling Friday that Republican Norm Coleman has not yet shown a widespread problem with absentee voters being denied the right to vote.

The three-judge panel ordered that rejected absentee ballots from at least 12 of 19 categories should not be counted in the Senate race. That's a setback for Coleman, who wanted to count ballots in all but three of the categories, although his attorneys said Friday they believed the ruling left about 3,500 rejected absentee ballots still at play in the trial.

Franken's attorney, Marc Elias, said the Democrat was pleased by the ruling. He said he couldn't yet estimate how many rejected ballots were struck from consideration. Prior to the judges' ruling, Coleman had a list of about 4,700 rejected absentee ballots he wanted counted.

Coleman is trying to undo Democrat Al Franken's 225-vote lead by arguing that absentee ballots were rejected inconsistently, and should be counted. But in their order, the judges expressed confidence in Minnesota's election system - including its handling of absentee ballots.

"The facts presented thus far do not show a wholesale disenfranchisement of absentee voters in the 2008 general election," wrote judges Elizabeth Hayden, Kurt Marben and Denise Reilly.

They wrote that "there is no systemic problem of disenfranchisement in the state's election system, including its absentee-balloting procedures."

Coleman's attorneys acknowledged disappointment at the narrowing of the field of potential new votes. "Some got knocked out, and we're saddened by that," Coleman attorney Ben Ginsberg said.

But another Coleman attorney, Jim Langdon, said he was pleased the judges didn't strike several categories where they think Coleman could gain the most ground, including ballots rejected for mismatched signatures between a ballot envelope and an application; And those rejected for lacking proof of registration even though the voter was registered.

Langdon said he believes there are about 2,900 rejected ballots between those two categories. He said several of the categories rejected by the judges had very few votes in them in the first place.

The numbers are likely to shift in the coming days as both sides get time to interpret the ruling. But Elias said Franken's team was most encouraged that the judges seemed to sign on to several of their overarching arguments, particularly that the legal requirements for voting absentee are fixed in state law and not subject to interpretation.

"They stated in no uncertain terms that for a ballot to be counted, it must meet all the statutory requirements and there are no exceptions to that," Elias said.

The judges' ruling also gave no credence to a central argument espoused by Coleman, that even absentee ballots rejected due to mistakes should be counted if ballots with similar mistakes were not rejected in other counties in the first place.

"It is not for this court to ignore the unambiguous requirements imposed upon voters attempting to cast an absentee ballot in Minnesota," the judges wrote.

They did leave Coleman hope that there could be votes counted from ballots in the remaining categories.

"We may discover certain additional ballots that were legally cast under relevant law," the judges wrote. But whatever rejected ballots do get thrown back into the mix are likely to contain some votes for Coleman and some for Franken, meaning Coleman would have to do significantly better in order to overtake Franken's current 225-vote lead.

The judges left seven highly specific categories in which previously rejected absentee ballots could still be counted, including ballots from overseas servicemembers that lack their original ballot application and ballots where the voter's witness didn't provide their street address.

But they also closed off some categories where Coleman had identified a number of potential votes to be added. That includes overseas servicemember ballots that were received late and unregistered voters who failed to get their registration material because of government error.

Up until now, the trial had been moving slowly as Coleman's attorneys mounted for including specific ballots off the list of 4,800. Elias said he expected the order would "streamline" the trial going forward, although Coleman's lawyers said it was likely they would still need to present evidence on specific ballots.

That's what they were doing earlier Friday, before the trial itself broke for the weekend so the judges could write their order.

The ballots examined in court on Friday while Plymouth City Clerk Sandra Engdahl was on the witness stand covered a wide range of issues: missing and mismatched signatures, voter registration problems, missing absentee ballot applications and questions about a few voters' inability to write.

More testimony in the case is expected Monday afternoon, but there was a little uncertainty as to who might be testifying. Friedberg indicated that county and city officials his team had planned to call as witnesses would normally be taking the President's Day holiday off, and it wasn't clear if the subpoenas were valid for a holiday.

"I wouldn't think the court would want to order them in here against their will," he said.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)