Trumbull elections board: Candidate ineligible

By ED RUNYAN

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

The Trumbull County Board of Elections has ruled Ken MacPherson is not eligible to run for Warren councilman at large after a Friday hearing, in which another candidate argued that MacPherson did not meet the residency requirement.

The hearing also raised questions about whether MacPherson had committed voter fraud, a felony, as MacPherson said he had voted in Howland Township in 2009 and 2010, despite having changed his residency from Howland to Warren when he got married in August 2009.

MacPherson, 44, who attended the hearing with his attorney, Robert Burkey, vowed to appeal the decision.

If the decision holds, there will be only three Democrats and no Republican in the primary election for councilman at large. Three council-at-large positions are up for election this year.

MacPherson and Burkey argued that MacPherson had to prove only that he was and will be a Warren resident for one year — from Nov. 9, 2010, until Nov. 8, 2011, the date of the general election.

Since MacPherson said he became a Warren resident in August 2009, when he married Warren resident Cindy Michael, he qualifies to run for office in Warren, they said.

But Jim Saker, an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor and legal adviser to the elections board, asked why MacPherson would vote in Howland in November 2009 and on Nov. 2, 2010, if he actually was a Warren resident.

MacPherson said he maintained residences in Howland and Warren during both of those elections and had meant to change his voting registration to Warren but had been too busy.

“It’s a matter of the way my work is. It’s pretty intense,” MacPherson said.

“I personally consider my vote very strongly. That’s what caused me to look at the law that allowed me to have multiple residences,” MacPherson said.

“Isn’t that kind of like having your cake and eating it, too?” Saker asked.

Asked by Kelly Pallante, elections-board director, whether MacPherson realized that he could have voted provisionally in Warren in 2009 and 2010, meaning to vote at the polls on paper ballot and have the elections board check on his residency afterward, MacPherson said he didn’t know that at that time.

At-large candidate Bill Kruppa, who filed the residency challenge against MacPherson, told the three elections-board members Friday that it was clear to him that MacPherson had either committed voter fraud by voting in Howland, or MacPherson really was a Howland resident and therefore ineligible to run for office in Warren.