Brannon plays the waiting game
<p>Jim Brannon surveys the court room during a recess Tuesday from a motion hearing. Brannon and his attorney are awaiting paperwork ordered by the judge in the case before making further legal decisions.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - Wait and see.
Starr Kelso, the lawyer representing City Council election challenger Jim Brannon, said they are waiting for a draft of the proposed dismissal order and a cost estimate for the Kootenai County documents before making their next legal decision.
"That's all we're doing right now," Kelso said Wednesday, one day after 1st District Judge Benjamin Simpson dismissed the city from the challenge suit and ordered a $40,000 bond be paid should it go forward solely against Seat 2 incumbent Mike Kennedy. "There's nothing to do until I see those and what the county is proposing as the amount."
That decision should come soon, as the county has until Friday to come up with a cost for producing the absentee documents Simpson allowed, including return envelopes, return envelope date stamps, record of applications and poll books.
That price would be added to the $40,000 bond - which would have to be paid or matched in full.
Mike Haman, the attorney representing Coeur d'Alene, acknowledged after Tuesday's hearing that Brannon could appeal Simpson's decision, but Kelso said Wednesday it was still too far out to say where the suit will go.
Brannon has until March 9 to file.
Some said the bond seemed too high, city watchdog and Citizens for Honest and Responsible Government member Mary Souza among them.
"Here's the message from Judge Simpson and the city and the county to the public," she wrote in her newsletter following the hearing. "Don't even think about questioning a local election unless you have lots and lots of money!"
Should the challenge go forward, Kelso would have to use the allowed documents to prove unqualified votes took place. Those illegal voters would testify for whom they voted, then the judge could decide to throw that vote out.
Kelso's original complaint identified five allegedly illegal voters: Three residents living abroad, one a military person oversees, and the other a county resident who voted on a city ballot.
Mike Kennedy's attorney, Scott Reed, said during previous hearings that the illegal county voter received the wrong ballot due to prescient error and could not recall for whom she voted in the city races, since she was primarily interested in the county's jail issue. The out-of-country voters maintained their voting registration in Coeur d'Alene, Reed said.
The military figure voted for Brannon, according to a court affidavit.
A brief filed by Kelso stated several more alleged illegal voters have been identified.
The trial is set for April 13, should it go forward.