As Pat Lopez reports in the Strib, the Al Franken campaign has filed suit against Ramsey County to compel disclosure of the names and addresses of voters whose absentee ballots were rejected.

Legally and politically, it’s a perfectly legitimate move to ensure that every vote is counted, but Team Franken stepped into a PR nightmare by embellishing the news of their lawsuit with the high-pathos anecdotal case of an 84-year-old Beltrami County woman whose ballot was rejected because a stroke had altered her signature. (MnIndy’s Chris Steller has video of the campaign’s telling of the story.)

But then, Lopez writes, “Beltrami County Auditor Kay Mack… questioned the campaign’s account, saying her office hadn’t rejected any ballots because of mismatched signatures. Mack said there was one instance of an 87-year-old woman in an assisted living center whose ballot was rejected because it bore no signature or mark. The law, Mack said, is ‘very clear’ about not accepting such ballots.

“After being contacted by the Star Tribune with Mack’s account, Franken campaign spokesman Andy Barr said Thursday night that there may have been ’some confusion about our earlier field report,’ adding that the campaign is ’still digging into the facts.’ Barr said the issue does not affect the merits of their lawsuit.”

Strictly speaking, Barr is right. And since the election is likely to be decided in court ultimately, the collateral damage from embarrassments like these may prove to be minimal. But it’s hardly an encouraging sign that the Franken campaign is faltering in foreseeable, preventable ways in the court of public opinion, especially when the Coleman campaign is seizing every opportunity to cast public doubt on the whole process.