ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - It may not be too early to declare one winner in Minnesota's Senate election fiasco: the folks who want the state to adopt early voting.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie says one thing that's clear from the race is that mistakes can be made with absentees. He says some of those mistakes wouldn't happen with early voting.

With early voting, voters walk into their local elections office sometime before Election Day, confirm their eligibility, fill out a ballot, drop it in a box and leave.

It's not so simple with absentee ballots.

There voters must apply for a ballot, fill it out, sign some forms and seal an envelope or two. With all those steps, it's easy for mistakes to happen and for ballots to be rejected.

Democrat Al Franken is ahead in the Senate race by 225 votes, but Republican Norm Coleman has sued to get thousands of rejected absentee ballots counted.

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