KTVB

U.S. Senate candidate Rex Rammell.

BOISE -- Before Idaho voters chose a new U.S. senator, the Idaho Supreme Court has weighed in on the matter.

Justices heard arguments this morning on the controversy surrounding independent candidate Rex Rammell and the validity of his name on the November ballot.

The issue surrounds the 1,007 names that Idaho county clerks validated for Rammell's name to appear on the ballot.

There’s been some challenges surrounding Rammell and his quest for the Senate seat, but this is the first time it's been to court and there are only a few days left for a decision to be made.

In order to have his name on the general ballot Rammell needed to collect 1,000 signatures.

Fifteen counties looked at the names submitted by Rammell and approved 1,007 of the signatures as valid.

But for the past four months a group of ten Idaho sportsmen and elk hunters have been looking over those names as well, and they claim 36 of those approved names are not legitimate.

They took their case to the Idaho Supreme Court and want the justices to remove Rammell's name from the November ballot.

But the Idaho Secretary of State's Office says 15 county clerks said they are OK and now the ballots must be printed.

"There have been allegations that there weren't out of the 1,007, and someone files barely over the minimum you are going to have some questions, but I am confident that the ballot is going to be out on time and that's our main concern," said Secretary of State Ben Ysursa.

"We spent four months investigating and analyzing all of those signatures, there were a minimum of 36 that were invalid, several were forgery, several double counts, a majority were not current Idaho voters and invalid," said Dennis Sallaz, attorney for the sportsmen.

Both sides are planning on an expedited answer by the Idaho Supreme Court -- and the got one late this afternoon. 

The Idaho Supreme Court denied the request to have Rammell's name kept off the ballot.

The secretary of state wanted a ruling no later than Friday because Sunday is the deadline to have the ballots ready. 

On Monday, they have to go to the county clerks, and by Tuesday they will be printed to send to absentee voters and military men and women.

When the lawsuit was first filed we spoke with Lt. Gov. Jim Risch's campaign office about the matter.

His campaign director told us that neither Risch nor his campaign is challenging the eligibility of any candidates.