Minnesota voters may have the chance to vote for Papa John Kolstad after all.

Kolstad, a musician and small businessman who is the Green Party's candidate for attorney general, has won an appeal with the Minnesota Secretary of State's office that likely will allow him to be listed as Papa John Kolstad on the Nov. 7 general election ballot.

Kolstad had petitioned to get on the ballot under the stage name he's used for more than four decades. But Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer told him at first that he would be listed only as John Kolstad.

"You can't use a title," Kiffmeyer had said in an interview last week. "Papa is a type of title, like Doc or Grandma."

Kolstad appealed, saying he's been known as "Papa John" throughout the state, distinguishing him from several other John Kolstads in Minnesota. He also cited his song, recorded on a recent CD, "I Was Always a Papa," and noted that Hubert Humphrey III and Hubert Humphrey IV had been listed on the last two statewide ballots, respectively, as Skip and Buck.

Kiffmeyer said Thursday that her change of heart could be appealed, and perhaps overturned, in court. She said she had gotten conflicting advice from lawyers on her own staff and the attorney general's office on the Kolstad question.

"It's a gray area," she said. "If I get conflicting information from different attorneys, I'm going to come down on the side of the candidate."

FROM STAFF REPORTS OF THE STAR TRIBUNE