| By Dave Harding, ProgressOhio - Mar 11th, 2009 at 12:36 pm EDT |
The Montgomery County Board of Elections delivered their official position papers on the question of whether State Sen. Jon Husted, R-Kettering, is a legal resident of Kettering for voting purposes to Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner today.
The Board tied 2-2 on a partisan basis in 3 votes on the matter at a meeting held on February 25, 2007.
Under Ohio Election law, the Secretary of State's office must now provide the deciding vote or return the matter to the Montgomery County Board of Election for further investigation.
There is no deadline for Secretary Brunner to rule, but she is aware that the matter needs resolved in a timely manner, according to Jeff Ortega, spokesman for the Secretary of State.
Residency questions have dogged Husted, R-Kettering, for years and the complaints followed an Oct. 18 Dayton Daily News article that raised new questions about whether he lives in Kettering or at his wife's home in Upper Arlington where Husted admits his wife and family reside.
In testimony provided on January 7, 2009, Husted provided no evidence to overcome section (D) of ORC 3503.02 Residence determination rules.
D) The place where the family of a married person resides shall be considered to be the person’s place of residence; except that when the spouses have separated and live apart, the place where such a spouse resides the length of time required to entitle a person to vote shall be considered to be the spouse’s place of residence.
other than his personal statement that he lives in Kettering.
Senator Husted testifies at his residency hearing before the Montogomery County Board of Elections
Tom Richie, a member of the Montgomery County Board of Elections on continuing to gather facts in the Husted Residency investigation. (No additional fact finding was conducted)
See Also:
Husted's Residency To Be Investigated By Election Board Based On ProgressOhio Complaint
GOP Speaker Husted To Be Investigated For Voter Fraud
Shadows On High: The Husted "Exemption", Ex-Speaker Flaunts Ohio Residency Laws (Video)
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This is not a problem a secretary of state candidate-in-waiting relishes. Sen. Husted is unsympathetic to the fact that the Montgomery County Board of Elections had no choice but to investigate his residency status once it got a formal complaint. The board simply doesn't have the option of ignoring these sorts of allegations.
Though it happens rarely, the board does get reports about voters voting in the wrong place or not being eligible; sometimes fraud is involved.
That was the case last year during the presidential campaign, when ineligible individuals were registering to vote in the state, and non-residents were falsely saying they lived in Ohio in an attempt to run up the votes for Barack Obama here. Of course, that sort of abuse of the system is wholly different than the criticism of Sen. Husted. But nobody should want local elections officials deciding they'll ignore some laws, but not others.
In response to Democratic board members' questions of him, Sen. Husted has not gone out of his way to offer compelling evidence that he spends substantial time at 148 Sherbrooke Drive.
Rather, his defense pretty much is "to the extent he left Montgomery County temporarily," he was doing so in his capacity as a "state employee" and that he intends to return to the county.
His intentions -- which he says the board must consider by law -- come up again and again in his brief to elections board members.
Sen. Husted is unlike many legislators in that he married a woman who lives in Columbus, and he has a child from a previous marriage who lives in Columbus. Moreover, when he was House speaker, that job required him to spend a lot of time outside of Dayton.
That said, there is this pesky law that aims to ensure that elected lawmakers have more than a fleeting association with the voters who elect them. It is not a ridiculous law, and Sen. Husted -- notwithstanding his professed intentions -- has yet to demonstrate that he has been meeting the spirit of its intentions.
But the truth is the truth; Sen. Husted hasn't really been living here even part-time, and he's asking Secretary Brunner to read the law in absolutely the most favorable light for him, while ignoring much that undercuts his case.