Woman who challenged Indiana voter ID law registered to vote in two states
Posted by AWB in UncategorizedWASHINGTON — As a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court begins today, the Indiana Voter ID law became a story with a twist: One of the individuals used by opponents to the law as an example of how the law hurts older Hoosiers is registered to vote in two states.
Faye Buis-Ewing, 72, who has been telling the media she is a 50-year resident of Indiana, at one point in the past few years also claimed two states as her primary residence and received a homestead exemption on her property taxes in both states.
Monday night from her Florida home, Ewing said she and her husband, Kenneth, “winter in Florida and summer in Indiana.” She admitted to registering to vote in both states, but stressed that she’s never voted in Florida. She also has a Florida driver’s license, but when she tried to use it as her photo ID in the Indiana elections in November 2006, poll workers wouldn’t accept it.
Subsequently, Ewing became a sort-of poster child for the opposition when the Indiana League of Women Voters (ILWV) told media that the problems Ewing had voting that day show why the high court should strike down the law.
But Indiana Republican Secretary of State Todd Rokita said Monday Ewing’s tale illustrates exactly why Indiana needs the law.
Damn dumbocrats can’t seem to pick a good horse. But wait, it gets better.
According to Ewing and Ann Nucatola, public information director for the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, Ewing surrendered her Indiana driver’s license in 2000, when she moved to Florida and obtained her Florida license. Nucatola said a driver must have a Florida address to obtain a Florida driver’s license.
“And if they own property in two states, they have to get a license that says ‘valid in Florida only,’” Nucatola said.
Ewing said Monday that her license is a “regular” one that she uses in both states. She renewed it in 2007 on a Punta Gorda, Fla., address.
At the Charlotte County, Fla., voter registration office, Sandy Wharton, vote qualifying office manager, said Ewing registered to vote in Charlotte County on Sept. 18, 2002, and signed an oath that she was a Florida resident and understood that falsifying the voter application was a third-degree felony punishable by prison and a fine up to $5,000.
Wharton said her office checked Ewing’s Florida residency and qualified her on Oct. 2, 2002. On Oct. 4, 2002, they mailed her Florida voter card to her, to the West Lafayette, Ind., address that Ewing gave as a mailing address.
However, Ewing didn’t vote in Florida that year, nor has she ever voted in Charlotte County, Wharton said. But, just a month after receiving her Florida voter card, she did vote in the November 2002 elections in Tippecanoe County, Ind., according to Heather Maddox, co-director of elections and registration in Tippecanoe.
And on top of that, she claimed two homestead exemptions.
A check with Charlotte County’s online property tax records shows that Ewing owns property there. One requirement in Florida to claim homestead is to show a valid voter ID or sign an affidavit of residency — which she did when she applied for her Florida voter card. She claimed a homestead exemption on the Florida property in 2003 — the same time she was claiming a homestead exemption on property she owned in Indiana, according to Tippecanoe deputy auditor Heather Satler. Satler said Ewing’s Indiana exemption began in 1994 and ended in 2004, when the exemption was removed because the state discovered she wasn’t living there.
Book em’ Danno – DT
Hat tip: MH / Michelle Malkin
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