The Madison County Election Board quietly moved to dismiss the vote fraud complaint citizen activist Greg Wright filed against former U.S. Rep. David McIntosh in April. Madison Co. Clerk Darlene Likens, who supported McIntosh's candidacy for the 5th District Republican nomination, had refused to investigate the complaint prior to the primary, suggesting that it had simply been filed for partisan motivations to harm McIntosh's candidacy. The Madison Co. Election board met on May 18 and dismissed the complaint without any attempt to investigate the detailed allegations laid out in Wright's complaint that established that McIntosh actually lived in suburban Washington, D.C. and not at the Anderson home he claimed as his residence.
The board cited four weak reasons for dismissing the complaint, including the fact that the Madison Co. Prosecutor, Rodney Cummings, also a McIntosh political supporter, had already opined on very shaky grounds that his voting residency was legal. The board also noted that nobody had ever challenged McIntosh's vote since he registered in Anderson in 2008, and that McIntosh had lost the May primary election. I'm not sure why McIntosh's electoral success or failure should be determinative of whether he committed vote fraud, but that's what the board said. The board also mentioned that the state elections division is still investigating a separate complaint Wright filed with it. I'm betting that nothing happens to McIntosh and that he quietly drops the charade of having an Indiana residence and registers to vote in Virginia where he has actually lived for many years.
I find it hard to predict how county election boards will rule, and what reasons they will give.
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