Posted by
Tweeter on Friday, October 06, 2006 3:35:08 PM
Now your telling me that a minister wouldn't lie about his residency? I can tell you from personal experience that one of my local friends refuses to take checks especially from ministers.
It's time to answer the most basic of answers are given, where is your actual permanent residence?
This time the candidate in question with residency AND voter-registration issues, something that came back to haunt McEwen in his second primary run a few months ago, is, ironically, the person who ended Bob McEwen’s congressional career in 1992.
That would be Ohio gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland:
Democrat Challenges Ted Strickland’s Residency
LISBON - Democrat Jaquelyn Long of East Liverpool today challenged the candidacy of gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland to the Columbiana County Board of Elections because of allegations of election fraud in Columbiana County.
“I am tired of seeing political commercials of Ted Strickland claiming he lives in Lisbon when he actually resides in Columbus,” said Long. This is exactly why I filed this challenge against him. He doesn’t pay taxes here, so he shouldn’t vote here.”
Pursuant to Ohio Revised Code R.C. 3503.24(C), Long asked the Columbiana County Board of Elections to remove Ted Strickland’s name from the registration list and concel his voter registration…..
There’s much more at Lincoln Logs, and I suspect there will be a lot more elsewhere before too long.
Perhaps knowledge of his vulnerability on ths matter explains Ted Strickland’s waffling on entering the gubernatorial race in the summer of 2005. If so, he should have either cleaned up the mess, or listened to that little voice saying “Don’t do it.”
Similar items about Strickland surfaced a couple of months ago (here, here, and here, for starters), but then faded into the background, for no apparent reason I could determine. Despite the brickbats that will inevitably be thrown at the GOP, even though it is a purported Democrat who is bringing the Columbiana County complaint, the better question is why the Ohio Democratic Party didn’t fully vet Strickland’s shaky residency situation at least a year ago and insist that the candidate either clear up any ambiguities or drop out. Or does ODP really think these things don’t matter?
At the very least, Strickland appears to have represented a district he has chosen not to live in for some time; voters in previous 6th District congressional elections who think residency matters deserved to know in 2004, and perhaps even earlier, they were voting for an after-the-fact carpetbagger if that is indeed the case. At most, Strickland’s actions could conceivably make him ineligible to be on the ballot as a gubernatorial candidate 33 days from now.
Ohio’s voters deserve to have the issues involved fully resolved to their lawful conclusions before the election.
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UPDATE: This AP profile, using info one would assume was given to it by the candidate, says that Strickland “now lives in Lisbon.” At the very least, given what he previously told the Columbus Dispatch about his Columbus-area condo, that’s some serious dissembling:
For example, Strickland said he and his wife do not live apart nor does she live in Kentucky as the e-mail said. When he is not in Washington, the couple lives in a rental property in Ohio or in a condo they own in Columbus.
It seems odd that the reporter wasn’t told where “in Ohio” the rental property is located.
UPDATE 2: Good question — Electoral fraud, or tax fraud?
UPDATE 3: The Lisbon Morning Journal’s coverage is here (HT Pullins Report).
UPDATE 4: The Blackwell Blog has the siren up. Matt at Lincoln Logs reports that the Cleveland Plain Dealer considers the story “lame.” NO, reporting that someone who is still living and breathing is dead (as the PD admits to in the post; the original reference to Mr. Lukens’ death at a previous post has apparently been removed) is lame.