County won't charge Schnebel for illegal voting
The county will not prosecute Democratic county commissioner candidate Stacey Schnebel for alleged voting violations because the statute of limitations has expired, Flathead County Attorney Ed Corrigan said Oct. 7.
The issue arose when Flathead County Republican Party chairman Jayson Peters sent a letter to Corrigan on Oct. 1 asking him to investigate Schnebel for illegal voting.
According to an official voter profile attached to Peters’ letter, Schnebel voted in the March 2008 Whitefish High School bond election and in the Whitefish municipal elections in November 2009 and 2011.
But according to an attached deed of trust, Schnebel and her husband bought a home in Coram in December 2007, and according to Schnebel’s own campaign resume, the couple have lived in Coram since 2007. Schnebel changed her voter registration to Coram in October 2012, Peters said.
Peters alleged that Schnebel violated a state law that stipulates “no person may vote who is not entitled to vote.” He said state law provides that “a person who knowingly violates a provision of the election laws of this state for which no other penalty is specified is guilty of a misdemeanor.”
Corrigan said he wrote to Peters explaining that the statute of limitations for a misdemeanor is one year. He also said he forwarded Peters’ complaint to the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices, Jonathan Motl.
Schnebel responded to the news by saying that Corrigan’s response was “precisely what I expected, and likely what was expected by the Republican Party leadership.” She called the allegations “a political stunt meant to question my integrity, which of course raised some concerns for voters.”
In an op-ed piece submitted to the Hungry Horse News, Schnebel said election judges in Whitefish “verified my Coram address and gave me a ballot at my Whitefish precinct, even after my official address changed.”
“The bottom line is, this is not a case of a malicious intent to affect elections in Whitefish,” she said in her op-ed piece.