[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish election may continue forward

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish election may continue forward

Published: Tuesday, November 29, 2011, 5:05 PM     Updated: Tuesday,
November 29, 2011, 5:05 PM

 By Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, The Times-Picayune 

Although the heated St. Bernard Parish elections are nearly two weeks behind
us, the wrangling will continue on Thursday with the losing District A
Parish Council candidate asking a state judge to declare the entire District
A results void and order a new district election. Incumbent District A
Councilman Ray Lauga beat Peter Rupp by 16 votes.

Rupp, a geotechnical engineering technician, alleges at least 44 of the
votes cast in the race should be declared invalid because he and his Kenner
attorney, Kurt Garcia, say the voters either have homestead exemptions
outside of St. Bernard or have parish residences that shouldn't qualify as
intended domiciles, such as vacant lots, post office boxes or parish-owned
buildings.

Because of a law the state Legislature passed after Hurricane Katrina that
states involuntarily displaced people from the storm shall still be
considered "an actual bona fide resident" of the parish in which they
registered to vote until they either establish a new domicile or change
their registration, often similar election contests have rested on
interpreting the term "domicile."

Louisiana case law has traditionally held that domicile consists of two
elements, residence and intent to remain. So, the case might rest on
interpreting such intent.

The issue of improper St. Bernard voters was first brought to light this
campaign season by sheriff candidate Wayne Landry's camp, who after alluding
to voter fraud for months, called a press conference the week before the
runoff saying he'd officially challenged about 1,300 early voting ballots
and suspected another 1,400 fraudulent votes.

But as his challenges were tallied in the ensuing days, it turned out most
of them were duplicates and in actuality he'd only contested 598 unique
voters, and, of those, only about 55 of the challenges had any proof
attached, according to parish Board of Election Supervisor Mike Bayham.

On the day of the Nov. 19 election, the parish Board of Election
Supervisors, along with Assistant Attorney General Bill Bryan, who
specializes in election matters, determined that despite possibly being
illegal, the 55 votes could not be removed from the rolls.

The state law they referred to in their decision says that registrars of
voters cannot cancel the registration of any parish voter between primary
and runoff elections except, in part, "in the case of a person who has been
fraudulently placed upon the registration records."

Landry ended up losing the sheriff's race to Jimmy Pohlmann by a 2,443-vote
margin, so the final 55, or even the total 598 unique challenges, would not
have affected the outcome.

If, in Rupp's case, state District Judge Manny Fernandez finds that the
number of "unqualified voters" was sufficient to change the District A
result, Fernandez could declare the election void and order a new one.

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