Mayor Emanuel ?!?!?

[classicman]

What is up with this?

The first question isn't: Can Rahm win? It's: Can Rahm run?

Sunday, Rahm Emanuel announced in a video posted on a website that he is preparing to run for mayor of Chicago. But two of Chicago's top election lawyers say the state's municipal code is crystal clear that a candidate for mayor must reside in the town for a year before the election

That doesn't mean they must simply own a home in the city that they rent out to someone else. They must have a place they can walk into, keep a toothbrush, hang up their jacket and occasionally sleep, the lawyers say.

Another three election lawyers say Emanuel could be thrown off the ballot on a residency challenge. None says Emanuel will have it easy.

Emanuel could argue that he has maintained ownership of the home, voted absentee earlier this year, pays property taxes on his house, lists the address on his driver's license, registers his car there, and always intended to return. Cook County judges give great deference to a candidate's intent.

"Two officials from the Chicago Board of Elections have clearly stated that the overriding legal issue is intent, and the fact that Rahm owns a home and votes in Chicago means he's a Chicagoan -- regardless of his opponent's old-style political efforts to limit the choice for voters," Emanuel spokeswoman Lori Goldberg said.

Actually, Chicago Board of Elections officials have said, with the caveat that they cannot comment on specific cases and they won't know what objections will be raised against mayoral candidates until Nov. 29, that they start with the presumption of intent if a candidate maintains a home in Chicago and votes absentee there.

"It's the sense of the election board that if you keep ownership of the property, keep your registration there, you've voted absentee, as far as we know he hasn't registered anywhere else, it's just like members of the military who serve overseas in Iraq -- we don't deny them the right to vote; people who take corporate assignments overseas, and lease out their home as a fact of life, it doesn't mean they've left permanently," Chicago Board of Elections spokesman Jim Allen said.

"If you are a registered voter and continue to vote from your residence, you establish what we consider the intent to be a resident of the city of Chicago," Chicago Election Board Chairman Langdon Neal told CBS2Chicago.

from here