Republican senator challenges voters

By RICHARD HANNERS / Whitefish Pilot

Sen. Greg Barkus, R-Kali-spell, has filed formal challenges over 10 individuals who used the address of Rep. Mike Jopek, D-Whitefish, when registering to vote.

According to Flathead County Election Department records, 12 people are registered at Purple Frog Gardens, 170 Blanchard Lake Drive, including Jopek and his partner, Pamela Gerwe.

Of the other 10, two are listed as inactive and four voted in the most recent election — the June 2008 primary. Three of those four still live at the same address, Jopek says — two are his nephews and one is a friend of one nephew. The fourth person returned to New Hampshire after a family tragedy, Jopek said.

Jopek's opponent in the House District 4 race, John Fuller, has four people other than him and his wife registered to vote at his home on KM Ranch Road. Fuller said one is his brother-in-law, one is his mother and two are family friends who live in an RV on his property for more than six months each year.

Barkus told the Pilot that he and other concerned individuals "screened" Flathead County election rolls for any addresses that had more than four registered voters.

He said he was concerned with reports nationwide about election irregularities, and he referred to Gov. Brian Schweitzer's joke this summer about tribal police bullying election observers out of Democratic-leaning polling places.

"There's so much voter fraud," Barkus said. "We need to clean it up. I'm frustrated with the whole thing."

Barkus said he's challenging the 10 individuals and not Jopek or Gerwe. He said there's no suggestion Jopek broke the law and that he doesn't know if Jopek was aware of the number of registered voters at his home.

"I never spoke to Jopek," Barkus said.

When asked whether people who move to another state make the point of telling election officials they are registering elsewhere, Barkus said, "That's a good point."

"If they lived there and worked there, well, that's fine and dandy," he said.

Attached to Barkus' affidavit is a four-page report compiled and written by Dave Skinner. The Whitefish area man ran as a "lunch-bucket Democrat" in the 2002 race for Flathead County commissioner. Skinner lost the primary race to Whitefish resident Karen Reeves and is now a Republican precinct committee member and a conservative columnist for the Flathead Beacon.

While he concedes that people often don't change their voter registration addresses when they move, Skinner considers it "a formality" and noted that he notified the election department soon after he moved out of Whitefish.

Jopek told supporters in a Oct. 28 e-mail that Barkus' challenge is "in apparent response" to Jopek's criticism of "out-of-district people who hide behind the shadowy shell game PACs, headed up by the former director of the Montana Republican Party, that distort our good work."

He called the challenge "a silly and retaliatory act of desperation that appears very contrary to the Montana Republicans promise to stop suppressing the youth vote."