Challenge filed on handful of local voters

By JIM MANNThe Daily Inter Lake

State Sen. Greg Barkus, R-Kalispell, has filed formal challenges over 10 people registered to vote in recent years under the address of Rep. Mike Jopek, D-Whitefish.

While it may appear unusual, Jopek maintains it isn't unusual for a small organic farm that relies on volunteer labor by mostly young people who have lived at his farm and registered to vote using the farm's address at different times over the last few years.

There are 12 people registered to vote under the address of Purple Frog Gardens, 170 Blanchard Lake Dr. They include Jopek and his partner, Pamela Gerwe, who are not included in the challenge, two people who are no longer considered "active" voters by the Flathead County Election Department, and eight others who are considered active.

Jopek considers the challenge a form of "voter suppression," considering that it is common for young people to move frequently in Whitefish, and for college students not to change their voter registration addresses when they go to school.

"Pam and I started our farm in 1991," Jopek said in a recent interview. "During that time we have been blessed to have friends, family and volunteers help us do the day-to-day chores. Some people, from 1991 to 2008, have lived with us."

The challenge filed with the Election Department under Barkus' name was prepared by Dave Skinner, a Whitefish-area Republican precinct committee member who believes that people who no longer live at the farm's address should be registered to vote at their current addresses.

"You only get one vote and it should be where you live and on the issues you know about," Skinner said after the challenge was filed last week.

Skinner concedes that people often don't change their voter registration addresses when they move, but he considers it "a formality that is not that difficult to do."

Skinner himself recently moved from Whitefish to a new home in the Trumbull Creek area. He said he promptly notified the county Election Department of the change.

Bowen Greenwood, spokesman for the Montana Secretary of State's Office, said that people who move within a county can still vote at their old polling places, where elections officials are supposed to account for the change of address. In general, he said, election law largely accounts for where people intend to live.

A person can go to college in-state or out of state and vote under their Montana hometown registration, he said. But people who move to other areas with no intention of returning to their hometowns are supposed to register at their new addresses.

According to records from the Election Department, six of the names listed in the affidavit of challenge voted in the 2006 general election and four voted in the 2008 primary election.

Of those who voted in the primary election, two are Jopek's nephews and one is a girlfriend of one of the nephews. The fourth is a family friend who recently moved to New Hampshire.

Based on Internet research, Skinner and Barkus assert in the challenge that one of Jopek's nephews appears to live in Missoula and the other in New Hampshire.

"They are wrong," Jopek said.

One nephew is a student at Flathead Valley Community College, the other is in construction - and both live at the farm, he said.

Another person registered at the address is a close friend who moved back to New Hampshire in response to a family tragedy. That man's sister also returned to New Hampshire and is registered to vote under the farm address after living there temporarily.

Two people listed in the challenge are considered inactive voters because they have not voted in the last two elections. Jopek said the couple lived at the farm for about eight months before returning to the Midwest and starting a farm of their own.

One woman who is registered to vote under the farm address lives elsewhere in Whitefish now. A man who temporarily lived and worked at the farm also now lives elsewhere in Whitefish. And another woman moved to Missoula last year to attend the University of Montana.

"Some of these people obviously don't live with me any more," Jopek said, explaining that it is not at all uncommon for people to move and not notify election officials.

A Web site for Purple Frog Gardens refers to internships that provide for room and board, with stipends, for guest workers and offers incentives for volunteer help.

"Whitefish is a transient community," Jopek said, referring to seasonal workers who, for example, work at Whitefish Mountain Resort. "Young people move to different locations. The high cost of housing prohibits them from purchasing houses, and they take up residence at different locations."

Jopek said other Montana legislators who work in agriculture have farmhands who are registered to vote under their addresses.

And he questions why similar scrutiny isn't being applied to his opponent in the upcoming election, Republican John Fuller, who has four people registered to vote at his address besides himself and his wife.

Fuller explained the situation: One person is his brother-in-law, another is his mother and two are family friends who live in a recreational vehicle on his property most of the year.

"They are legal citizens and they live here more than six months a year," he said, adding that the couple spend winters in Arizona.

There are concerns among Republicans including Fuller, Barkus and Skinner about young people temporarily moving to Montana - with no intention of establishing residency - who may exploit a requirement that voters must live in the state for only 30 days before they can legally register to vote.

They say there is potential for visiting out-of-state college students, for example, to be registered in more than one state and to cast more than one vote in the presidential election, because interstate database safeguards to guard against that practice have yet to be developed. Those situations would compromise not only the presidential election, the Republicans say, but they also would allow people with no intent of living in a Montana community to have an influence on the community's elections.

Jopek insists that people who have registered to vote at his address have in no way tried to game the system of state election laws.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com