County attorney candidate’s eligibility challenged

In a recent press release distributed by Ron Ehli, Treasurer for County Attorney Bill Fulbright’s election campaign, it was announced that a lawsuit had been filed in District Court contesting the candidacy of Fulbright’s opponent in the election race, Joan Mell. The lawsuit was filed in Ravalli County District Court on May 3 by Ravalli County resident and voter Jason Liechty, who works as a Deputy Sheriff.

In the lawsuit, Liechty claims that Mell does not meet the state’s requirements for candidacy. He claims that Mell was not a resident of the state of Montana for the two years required to hold the office. He alleges that Mell was not a resident of the State of Montana on January 1, 2021, based on the fact that she registered to vote in the state of Washington on October 4, 1990 and voted there on November 2, 2021.

“A person is only eligible to vote in the state of Washington when that person resides in that state for the 30 days immediately preceding the election in which the person votes,” it states in the lawsuit. “Thus Joan Mell did not reside in the State of Montana on November 2, 2021 because she exercised her right to vote in the state of Washington on that date… Mell did not register to vote in the State of Montana until February 25, 2022.”

The lawsuit also alleges that because Mell was not admitted to the practice of law in Montana until October 11, 2019, she does not meet the additional requirement of being licensed to practice law for five years before holding the office. 

Liechty is asking the Court to find all this true and rule that she is not eligible to hold the office and rule that she falsely swore that she was eligible when she signed her oath of candidacy. He asks the court to order the Ravalli County Elections Administrator not to count any votes for Mell in the Primary Election scheduled for June 7, 2022.

Mell characterized the lawsuit as an underhanded, politically motivated action that had no chance of holding up in court.

“This was staged and timed so that I would have a very difficult time clearing my name before the election,” said Mell. She said that if she was truly not qualified to be a candidate, that County Attorney Bill Fulbright, her opponent, would have had her disqualified on the day she filed. Most everything in this claim was known or knowable on that date,” she said.

Mell said that her candidacy absolutely meets the requirements of Montana law, “and they know it.” She said the law is simple and clear, saying it requires being a citizen of the United States, having resided at least two years in the state immediately before taking office, and having been admitted to the practice of law for at least five years before holding office. She said the courts have already definitively established that it means practice of law anywhere, not just on the state of Montana. She has been practicing law for 31 years. 

Mell said as far as the residency requirements go, she has been a resident of Montana in Ravalli County since 2003. She said the law states that, “In determining the place of residence the following rules are to be observed. It is the place where a person remains when not called elsewhere for labor or other special or temporary purpose and to which the person returns in seasons of repose.”

“Montana has been my place of repose since 2003,” said Mell. She said she moved to Montana in 1968 as a four-year old and went to grade school through college in Montana. She left the state for a while but then returned to take up residency in 2003. 

She went on to say that the lawsuit has misinterpreted Washington state law voting requirements. She said she did file to vote in 2019 in Washington and voted there, but that Washington law allows people to vote there in absentee ballots until they register to vote in another state for up to 10 years after leaving the state. She did register to vote here in February of this year.  

Mell said she was confident that the lawsuit was going to be dismissed, but there was not time to get that done before the primary election. 

“They just wanted to get me to talk about why I voted the way I did,” said Mell, “so the damage is done. But I’m confident that most people will realize that if my candidacy was illegitimate that it would have already been invalidated in this process by my opponent.” 

She called the whole thing “an abuse of power and underhanded” and blamed Fulbright’s campaign staff for orchestrating it.

Neither Liechty nor Ehli returned phone messages from the Bitterroot Star inquiring about the lawsuit.