Idaho Supreme Court Chief Justice Daniel Eismann informed attorneys this afternoon that Judge Charles Hosack has been appointed to hear Jim Brannon’s election contest lawsuit.  The District’s administrative judge could ask the Supreme Court to make such an appointment after all other sitting First District Court judges had disqualified themselves or been disqualified.  Judge John Mitchell is the administrative judge for the First District Court.

As the Kootenai County Hall of Administration went up in flames, County Clerk Dan English was heard to cry, "To hell with the voter records - save my Tote-a-Vote business records! We can fabricate new voter records on my next visit to friends in Canada!"

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Well, today’s Catch of the Day Award goes to commenter Gary Ingram.  Responding to samasterson’s observation that Idaho Code 34-614 does not require candidates for Idaho state representative or senator election to be electors, Gary properly pointed out that the Idaho Constitution , Article 3, Section 6 does.

Shouldn’t Idaho’s Secretary of State and the County Clerks have spotted this apparent conflict between statute and Constitution and brought it to the attention of the legislature for correction?

The Catch of the Day Award goes to newly-registered commenter samasterson for pointing out my error in the post titled He’s At It Again.  Commenter samasterson correctly and authoritatively cited Idaho Code 34-614, the section which states the qualifications for a candidate to file for election as a state representative or senator.  Notably, that section does not require a candidate for the Idaho Senate to be a registered voter or a qualified elector.

Why do you suppose the Idaho legislature did not include an explicit requirement that candidates for state representative or senator must be a registered voter or qualified elector?

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Here’s an interesting story out of Jefferson County, Idaho.

And all this time I thought nepotism, bid-rigging, and conflict of interest in Idaho was unique to Coeur d’Alene and Kootenai County.

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Kootenai County Clerk Dan English is at it again — changing Idaho’s election laws on his own, ignoring those that require too much work,  and making  up others as he goes along.

Not being satisfied with mangling the November 2009 Coeur d’Alene City election administraton, English has moved up to trying to foul the State Senate District 3 campaigns of both incumbent Senator Mike Jorgenson and his challenger Steve Vick.

English may have succeeded.

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