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Update: Brannon Challenges Election

Update: You can read a copy of Brannon's lawsuit here (sorry it's upside-down)

The losing candidate in a Coeur d’Alene City Council race on Monday filed a lawsuit challenging the race, naming all council members as defendants, along with the mayor, the city clerk, and Kootenai County’s clerk and elections manager. In the November general election, Jim Brannon lost to incumbent City Councilman Mike Kennedy by five votes, according to results tallied and published by the Kootenai County elections office. Brannon said in a news release that he didn’t intend the lawsuit as an indictment, but said with a race that close, he owed it to the voters to ensure the race was conducted correctly/Alison Boggs, SR. Complete story below.

The losing candidate in a Coeur d’Alene City Council race on Monday filed a lawsuit challenging the race, naming all council members as defendants, along with the mayor, the city clerk, and Kootenai County’s clerk and elections manager.

In the November general election, Jim Brannon lost to incumbent City Councilman Mike Kennedy by five votes, according to results tallied and published by the Kootenai County elections office.

Brannon said in a news release that he didn’t intend the lawsuit as an indictment, but said with a race that close, he owed it to the voters to ensure the race was conducted correctly.

“The facts revealed that built-in election safeguards were not completely followed,” Brannon said. “Given the closeness of the published results, these failures have compromised the election process to the extent that the totals and the result of the election would change.”

Mayor Sandi Bloem, a defendant, and City Attorney Mike Gridley said they hadn’t seen the lawsuit yet and couldn’t comment. Councilman Kennedy said he hadn’t seen it yet either, but added: “I’ll be getting lawyers and responding appropriately.”

The lawsuit filed Monday in First District Court in Kootenai County seeks to “set aside, void, annul” all or part of the election. The majority of the issues concern the county’s handling of absentee ballots. However, Brannon’s attorney, Starr Kelso said that, under Idaho law, it was illegal for the county to run the city’s election.

The lawsuit delineates a long list of ways in which the defendants allegedly mishandled the election. They include: failing to determine whether people seeking ballots in the city of Coeur d’Alene were residents of the city; failing to maintain a poll book for absentee voters, including voter names and addresses; not addressing discrepancies between the number of ballots received and the numbers of ballots scanned; and even allowing a Kootenai County resident to vote in a Coeur d’Alene city precinct.



D.F. Oliveria
D.F. (Dave) Oliveria joined The Spokesman-Review in 1984. He currently is a columnist and compiles the Huckleberries Online blog and writes about North Idaho in his Huckleberries column.

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