ProgressOhio

Deputy Director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, Republican Matt Damschroder is at the center of the lawsuit over provisional ballots that could have a material impact upon the race between Steve Stivers and Mary Jo Kilroy for Ohio's 15th Congressional seat.

Both the original case filed in Ohio's Supreme Court as well as the Appeal of Judge Marbely's decision Thursday to count all the votes are supported by affidavits of Mr. Damschroder (see here and here).

Records obtained by ProgressOhio through the Secretary of State's public website indicate that Damschroder has more than just a interest in determining what is a fair and legal vote count.   
 
More than half of Matt and Carrie Damschroder's political campaign contributions since 2003 have been made to Steve Stivers.  Their last and largest single contribution was $200 made to the Stivers for Congress campaign.

Political campaign contributions by parties such as Damschroder who are responsible to the voters for the conduct of free and fair elections are not a violation of any Ohio Law, but in the unusual circumstances surrounding the case at hand the contributions of the Damschroders do raise ethical questions over whether Matt Damschroder is trying to use his position as Deputy Director of the Franklin County Board of Elections to better his chosen candidate's odds of winning..

This isn't the first time Matt Damschroder has directly faced ethical issues in performing his duties to the voters of Franklin County.

There have been some heavy scars inflicted by Mr. Damschroder’s (a former Executive Director of the Franklin County GOP who resigned that position in 2003 to join the Board of Elections), partisan role in Franklin County.

The first and most obvious issue being the well-documented voting machine shortages resulting in long lines for Franklin County’s minority precincts in 2004 which, along with Cuyahoga County, helped throw the election to George W. Bush.

In 2005 Damschroder was fined a month's pay for accepting and passing to the Republican Party donations from Diebold while at work in the FCBOE's offices on the day of a bid opening for voter registration software.

At the time he admitted he "mixed too much politics with public service".

Earlier this year, Damschroder was forced to step down from his position as Director of the FCBOE after a public records request by ProgressOhio revealed that he had carried out a behind the scenes crusade attempting to discredit the Secretary of State's EVEREST project to test the integrity of Ohio's electronic voting machines.

But what generally isn't public infomation is that Damschroder's current position as Deputy Director where SoS Brunner maintains the right to fire him for cause is due to a complete foul up at the FCBOE.

As leaked to and reported in  the Columbus Dispatch, Damschroder, apparently with the Secretary of State's agreement, was to step down as Director and be voted into the position of Deputy Director, but in a last minute attempt to place Damschroder outside the the purview of Secretary Brunner, the Board at it's March 2, 2008 organization meeting required by Ohio law voted to provide him a "consulting agreement" carrying the same pay as his fomer role of Director.

However, as it turns out the Franklin County Board of Elections had moved in an improper manner through not following the legal procedures required for Election Board Organization and rather than have the entire Board challenged as would have been the right of the Secretary of  State they went back and re-formed naming Mr. Damschroder as a Deputy Director as per the original agreement instead of providing him the lucrative "consulting" arrangement.

One can only hope that while she'll take more smears claiming "partisan" from the ORP, the Secretary of State will take actiion after the current lawsuits have concluded to remove Matt Damschroder from his Deputy Director position through which he weilds  his continuing outrageous partisanship over the rights of Franklin County voters or that Matt Damschroder will do the right thing and step down and leave the Board of Elections entirely once and for all.