KY: Panel won't certify race for Senate

By Joseph Gerth
jgerth@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal




The Kentucky Board of Elections refused yesterday to certify the election of Democrat Virginia Woodward to the state Senate, saying it didn't want to wade into a battle that it expects to end before the state Supreme Court.

Rejecting the advice of the board's lawyer, who said it was required by law to certify the election, the three Republicans and three Democrats voted unanimously to table the matter.

If that decision stands, it means that neither Woodward nor her Republican opponent, Dana Seum Stephenson, will have the certification needed to be sworn in as the 37th District senator when the General Assembly meets next month. The campaign was thrown into disarray on the day before the Nov.2 general election, when Woodward filed suit claiming that Stephenson didn't meet residency requirements

>snip

Democrats in the Senate, however, blasted the board's decision and questioned whether it had fulfilled its duties.

"Has the state board of elections violated the law by refusing to follow the final order of the Jefferson Circuit Court ...? Is the State Board above the law?" Senate Minority Leader Ed Worley, D-Richmond, asked in a statement. The board's vote to table the certification came after a public discussion that was dominated by Kirkland, who argued that Willett didn't specifically order the board to certify the election.

more:http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2004/12/14ky/A1-seum1214-6215.html

this thing is confusing me...I don't know what they are doing in ky. LEt the people decide. Revote if they have to.

Stephenson got about a thousand more votes than Woodward, but three weeks after the election, a Jefferson Circuit judge ordered that Stephenson's votes not be counted.

Stephenson admitted that she lived in Indiana during four of the six years before the election, and Judge Barry Willett ruled that she did not meet a constitutional requirement that she be a Kentucky resident for the six years prior to her election.

http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2004/12/14ky/A1-seum1214-6215.html

All of us who live near the district already knew that Stevenson was ineligible for months before the election. It was public knowledge that she hadn't lived in Kentucky for the requisite years. I think she lived in Jeffersonville before, which is a just a few miles outside of Louisville but nevertheless not in Kentucky.

In order to become a candidate, you have to sign a form stating that you fulfill the requirements, and she obviously lied. We knew it, and it wasn't lost on the judges either.

We were all wondering from the beginning how exactly she thought she was going to get away with it.

"Stephenson has, however, asked the Republican-controlled Senate to determine that she is the winner and seat her."

don't have to follow the law? If the knuckle-draggers in Kentucky want Stephenson, they should have her. Who cares about the law in BushAmerica?

n/t