Andrew Napolitano of Fox News called Mark Ritchie a "former Communist."

During the November 19 edition of Fox News' Studio B, Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano, a former New Jersey Superior Court judge, baselessly claimed that Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (D) is a "former member of the Communist Party." Discussing the members appointed to the Minnesota State Canvassing Board, which oversees the recount in the Minnesota Senate race, Napolitano stated: "The fifth member of the committee by statute, is the secretary of state, who is a Democrat and a former communist -- former member of the Communist Party." Napolitano provided no evidence to support his claim that Ritchie is "a former communist" or a "former member of the Communist Party."

Napolitano was taking further a smear advanced by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which, as Media Matters for America noted, put out a "background document" suggesting a link between Ritchie and the Communist Party. In that document, the NRSC reprinted an assertion in the Minneapolis Star Tribune that "The Communist Party USA wrote encouragingly of candidacy."

The Star Tribune article making the original claim that the "Communist Party USA wrote encouragingly of his candidacy" did not provide any evidence for this claim. According to a search of the Communist Party USA's website, in a June 24, 2006, report, CPUSA political action committee chair Joelle Fishman wrote: "In Minnesota the DFL candidate for Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, of the League of Rural Voters could play a valuable national role."