Stonewall Logan

In the dust and smoke of battle, there stood Dean Logan, like a stone wall:

State law correctly puts the burden on the challenger to prove a voter's registration is not valid. Given the seriousness of the issue, the threshold for denying a citizen the right to vote must be high. Therefore, it is incumbent on the challenger to meet all the requirements of the law, including the requirement that he or she provide the actual address at which the challenger believes the voter resides. That requirement is important because of the real risk of casting suspicion on a voter because he shares an address with private mail box or commercial storage facility.

In the majority of challenges, the evidence provided to the Canvassing Board did not establish a residential address other than what was provided by the voter, nor did they present clear and convincing evidence that the voter does not reside at the address listed on their registration.

As Logan now construes the law, a person whose voter registration states an impossibility is nevertheless presumed to be a real person who has the right to vote. People who stated under oath that their actual places of residence were rented mailboxes (too small for a gerbil to call "home") must still be allowed to cast ballots until someone can track them down and figure out where they really live (assuming they aren't simply voting more than once using false identities and addresses).

Note that the statute authorizes a challenge based on the fact "that [the] voter no longer maintains a legal voting residence at the address shown on his or her registration record."

The GOP was challenging people who never did maintain a residence at the address shown on their registration records.

Trying to achieve honest elections is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall, when people like Logan are in charge of the process.