Moving violation? Voting record of Assembly candidate challenged
| Friday, Mar 12 2010 09:05 PM
Last Updated Friday, Mar 12 2010 09:11 PM
TIMELINE
July 25, 1993 -- Shannon Lee Smith registers to vote at 12400 Prairie Rose Way, in the 32nd Assembly District.
Feb. 28, 2007 -- Shannon Lee Smith files for divorce from Paul James Smith. Divorce finalized in June.
Sept. 29, 2007 -- Shannon Lee Smith and Ricki Duane Grove marry in Bakersfield. Both parties list their residence as 83 Vera Fern Drive, a large ranch property north of Bakersfield. The address is located in the 30th Assembly District.
Feb. 5, 2008 -- Elections records show Shannon Grove votes at a polling booth in precinct 3054, based on her standing voter registration as Shannon Smith at 12400 Prairie Rose Way.
Nov. 4, 2008 -- Shannon Grove votes again based on her registration at 12400 Prairie Rose Way. She votes for 32nd District Assemblywoman Jean Fuller.
Jan. 24, 2009 -- Shannon Lee Grove registers to vote at 83 Vera Fern Drive, in the 30th Assembly District.
Feb. 19, 2010 -- Shannon Lee Grove registers to vote at 3518 Fairmount Street in Bakersfield, located in the 32nd Assembly District.
Feb. 25, 2010 -- Shannon Lee Grove announces she will run for the 32nd Assembly seat.
Sources: County elections and marriage records
Shannon Grove, a local labor company owner running in the 32nd Assembly District Republican primary, is under fire for her voting record and a last-minute address change that cleared the way for her political aspirations.
Kern High School District Trustee Ken Mettler, who is running against Grove, has filed a complaint with the Kern County District Attorney's office claiming she committed voter fraud in re-registering to vote Feb. 19.
He claims it's implausible Grove would move from a large ranch home in the 30th Assembly District to a small home in the Bakersfield Country Club area of the 32nd.
Grove said she can't control her opponents' decisions to play dirty politics.
"I intend to rise above this pettiness," she said.
But Grove faces another challenge to her voting record.
She admits that in 2008, she lived in the 30th Assembly District but voted for Republican Assemblywoman Jean Fuller in Fuller's 32nd Assembly District race against Democrat Virginia Martinez.
"In essence that's a form of voter fraud. You're supposed to vote in the district where you live," Mettler said.
Grove's attorney, Chuck Bell of Sacramento, said Grove owned another home in the 32nd District and, while she didn't live there, it legalized Grove's vote for Fuller.
SKIPPED REGISTRATION
Grove was going through a lot of personal changes in 2007 and 2008.
According to court records, she filed to divorce her first husband, Paul James Smith, in February 2007. Three-and-a-half months after a judge ruled the marriage over, Grove married current husband Ricki Duane Grove.
She moved into her new husband's home on Vera Fern Drive on Poso Creek in the hills north of Bakersfield, going from the 32nd Assembly District to the 30th District.
Grove should have re-registered to vote at her new home before casting another ballot. But Grove didn't re-register until January 2009.
Kern County elections records show on Feb. 5, 2008, and Nov. 4, 2008, Grove returned to her old neighborhood in northwest Bakersfield and voted under the name of Shannon Smith using the address on Prairie Rose Way where she had lived with her ex-husband.
Bell said Grove doesn't remember voting in the the February primary, as elections records show, but did vote in the November general election.
She could have used a provisional ballot to record her votes without re-registering at her new home, he said, but she didn't.
"She did not know that she could re-register same day or vote by provisional ballot," Bell said.
Grove said she voted for Fuller.
"I think she acknowledges it was a mistake," Bell said.
But whether that vote constituted voter fraud depends on how you define the word "domicile."
DOMICILE
California's Elections Code says: "The domicile of a person is that place in which his or her habitation is fixed, wherein the person has the intention of remaining, and to which, whenever he or she is absent, the person has the intention of returning. At a given time, a person may have only one domicile."
Grove acknowledges her family's home was the ranch home on Vera Fern Drive in the 30th Assembly District.
But exceptions to the definition outlined in the Elections Code make the issue of a person's official domicile a little murky.
Bell argues Grove could have intended to consider another home she owned, on Stafford Falls Drive in the 32nd District, her domicile.
Did Grove really "intend" the Stafford Falls Drive home to be her legal domicile? Bell said he doesn't believe Grove had that intention.
But the fact she could have had the intention, he argued, is enough to make her vote for Fuller legal.
"Some latitude is afforded here," he said.
The penalty for fraudulent voting is up to one year in county jail or up to three years in state prison. Someone would have to file a complaint with the district attorney's office or state attorney general's office for any action to happen.
CARPETBAGGER?
Mettler said he wasn't aware of the quirks in Grove's 2008 voting record.
His concerns about Grove's record are much more recent and tied to her Feb. 19 move back into the 32nd District.
"If she does not win in the primary, is that where she is going to live, where her kids are going to go to school?" Mettler asked. "You swear under penalty of perjury that is where you're going to live."
Mettler also claims that despite the fact the rule isn't enforced by the state, Grove was required by the state constitution to register in the 32nd Assembly District a full year before she started her run for office.
"I know this happens in other districts and they wink an eye. Even though it has been done often, it doesn't make it right. It doesn't make it ethical," Mettler said.
Bell said while Mettler's thoughts on the matter are common, the California Supreme Court has ruled the one-year residency rule unconstitutional for decades and the attorney general's office has not enforced the rule for a similar time period.
"It's an easy accusation to make," Bell said.
