Has Pernsteiner been voting illegally?

3/21/2011: The ever helpful bojack.org posts the Oregon statutes on determining voting residence:

(3) An elections official may consider, but is not limited to considering, the following factors in determining residency of a person for voter registration purposes:
(a) Where the person receives personal mail;
(b) Where the person is licensed to drive;
(c) Where the person registers motor vehicles for personal use;
(d) Where any immediate family members of the person reside;
(e) The address from which the person pays for utility services; and
(f) The address from which the person files any federal or state income tax returns.

3/19/2011: OUS Chancellor George Pernsteiner owns a house in Portland, and he spends most of his working time at his office at PSU. But he votes in Eugene. Now the Lane County elections supervisor is asking him why:

He’s been doing this since 2004 – apparently it’s part of the pretense that he is using the state owned Treetops mansion in Eugene as his “actual residence.” I’m no lawyer, but I believe in Oregon it’s a felony to make a false statement on a voter registration card:

Here’s what Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown says about voter fraud, in the Oregonian, last year.

… Perhaps the greatest deterrents are the penalties for a Class C felony. That’s the crime when someone ineligible casts a ballot, votes under a false name, forges a signature on a ballot envelope or falsely registers to vote. If they do manage to get by our security checks, the Oregon Department of Justice will prosecute and then we’re talking five years in prison, a $125,000 fine and, when appropriate, deportation.

For example, a Josephine County man who was not a citizen forged the name of his younger brother, a citizen, on a voter registration card. We investigated, the Department of Justice prosecuted and he was convicted of four felonies and deported. Now he can never become an American. …

We deploy a full arsenal of tools against voter fraud, including long prison terms, heavy fines and deportation. We have checks and balances at all levels of the system. And we have the Department of Justice prosecutors backing us up.

As chief elections officer, it’s my job to protect the integrity of the ballot. If you suspect any kind of fraud at all, you should call us at 503-986-1518 with as many details as possible. Believe me, we’ll investigate.

Deportation. I like that. Next time you leave Oregon’s 3rd Congressional District you’d better have a visa, dude.

As I see it Pernsteiner can either admit that he has been voting illegally, change his registration and pretend he just now moved, or stonewall and keep claiming he lives at Treetops. So far, he’s still claiming his residence is Treetops:

My guess is that his lawyer tells him to quietly change his registration to his real house, throw himself on the mercy of Secretary of State Kate Brown, and claim his 7 years of voting in Lane County were an innocent mistake that had nothing to do with his office’s efforts to fend off the claims by Campbell Church’s heirs to Treetops.

Which is going to be a tough sell, given the letters like this that are floating around:

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