ProgressOhio

Now that the county prosecutor Ron O'Brien has moved to invalidate the votes and registrations of the 13 Vote From Home activists living in Columbus for the last three months, any bets on how long it will take him to nullify the votes of high-level McCain staffers who have done likewise?

Katherine Spellman, McCain's regional events director hails from Boston but has cast an absentee ballot in Franklin County. New Jerseyan Joe Coletti, McCain's deputy campaign coordinator here, is registered at the same address as Spellman and likewise has already cast an absentee ballot. It's obvious that neither has any intention of becoming a permanent resident here, and will vacate shortly after the election.

O'Brien has bloviated thusly:

"The law is crystal clear - you cannot be a temporary resident and register to vote, or vote, here in Ohio."

Notwithstanding the fact that the law is far from "crystal clear" as to what constitutes a permanent resident (requiring O'Brien to set up his office as an opaque chamber to allow or disallow ballots on whatever ad hoc criteria he wants to apply), he should be compelled to act against these McCain staffers on his own professed standards.

These aren't the only McCain staffers, or Obama staffers for that matter, in the same situation as the "Brownlee 13." Now that O'Brien has created this mess, he shouldn't be allowed to make this progressive 527 group the only fall guys.