Frank Larose Disenfranchises Voters Voices as Maras is Off the Ballot Following Kangaroo Court Decision

MR. MENDENHALL:

Your Honor, I want to clarify that I made no motion to exclude witnesses.

If they made a motion, that's fine.

MR. CONOVER:

I thought we talked about it beforehand.

I would make a motion to exclude.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Okay.

We will object.

We would like our witnesses to stay.

Whatever you decide.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

The court is going to overrule that motion.

Anyone who intends to testify, I would ask you to --

MR. MENDENHALL:

Your Honor, you just said overrule.

I hate to correct you.

You're going to grant the motion to exclude witnesses?

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Yes.

MR. MENDENHALL:

You said overruled.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

I'm overruling your objection.

MR. MENDENHALL:

You're overruling my objection.

I just wanted to make sure that was clear for the record.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

I will ask again, is there anyone here who intends to be a witness in this case?

MR. MENDENHALL:

There are on our side.

I have right here Jay Lynn and I Nick and Tore are all witnesses on our side.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Step out if you will.

MS. MARAS:

What?

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Thank you.

Are you ready to proceed with your witnesses, Mr. Conover?

MR. CONOVER:

Yes.

We plan to walk through the hearing by the public records. It's all public records.

It was all obtained via public records.

We're happy to walk through it if that's appropriate with you. That's typically how we handle these or at least how I have handled these sorts of hearings, protest hearings.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

This is your hearing.

You can do it any way you want.

Do you intend to call a witness?

MR. CONOVER:

No, we do not.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

You're relying on the documents that have been admitted?

MR. CONOVER:

Yes.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Your Honor, I have a question, a point of procedure.

Did I hear correctly that you're not putting a witness on the stand today?

MR. CONOVER:

Yes.

I have never called a witness in a protest hearing like this.

MR. MENDENHALL:

I actually have a little bit of confusion. I have participated in protest hearings.

We have been on both sides of these arguments.

We have presented witnesses.

What are you preparing to do, testify?

MR. CONOVER:

We're going to walk through the public records.

I'm not testifying to anything.

It's all on the public records that we received

from the Boards of Elections.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

You can proceed, Mr. Conover.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Your Honor, I'm going to object and put the objection on the record.

This is not, in my experience, how we proceed.

We are challenging elections and somebody is a protester and they come in as the protester.

I appreciate he I appreciate he has a representative, but now his representative is going to proceed to testify. I want to make that objection is clear.

MR. CONOVER:

I'm literally just using the binder.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

You will point out what you perceive to be the basis of your challenge?

MR. CONOVER:

Exactly right.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Your Honor, he's not the protester.

The protester should be the one who is presenting the basis for his challenge to this court.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

I understand your objection.

I'm going to permit him to proceed.

MR. CONOVER:

Thank you, Your Honor.

It's part-petition 427421, Line 3.

The voter is Dan Knechtly, K-N-E-C-H-T-L-Y.

Your Honor, this actually as part of the evidence from the Maras Campaignthey submitted an affidavit and this would be Affidavit 2, Exhibit JJ.

It's an affidavit that I said that the voter in this case, Gail Knechtly, who signed line 2, has a Power of Attorney to sign the petition for Dan Knechtly. The affidavit says she signed his name.

The problem we would say is that Power of Attorneys is not sufficient to sign a part-petition for someone.

There's a process called an Attorney-In-Fact and it's outlined in 3501.382 and you essentially have to file a form with the Board of Elections and have that form on file with the Board of Elections and then you're permitted to sign a part-petition for a voter that might not be able to sign for themselves.

We requested that Attorney-In-Fact form after the Maras Campaign submitted their Power of Attorney Affidavit and they do not have an Attorney-In-Fact form.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

When you say "they" --

MR. CONOVER:

The board of Elections.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Mr. Mendenhall or the Maras Campaign?

MR. CONOVER:

The Maras Campaign.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Or Board of Elections?

MR. CONOVER:

The Maras Campaign indicated an affidavit that basically Mr. Knechtly's wife had Power of Attorney to sign his name.

There's a process.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

I read that in their documents.

The question to you is --

MR. MENDENHALL:

I'm going to put an objection on the record.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Let me finish the line of inquiry please.

My question to you is you said "they."

What I want to know is who is the antecedent of the pronoun "they." Did you refer to The Campaign or the Board of Elections?

MR. CONOVER:

It's the Board of Elections. They don't have an Attorney-In-Fact form on file.

MR. MENDENHALL:

I'm objecting to this testimony, Your Honor. This is really odd because it's narrative testimony.

I guess I have to put my objections in.

I mean, the issue is here's a protester and I want to know what that protester did to follow up on whether or not there is an Attorney-In-Fact form at the Board of Elections.

I don't want to hear from his lawyer.

His lawyer is incompetent to give this evidence.

It's the protester that has that evidence.

That's my objection.

MR. CONOVER:

This argument wasn't raised until it was submitted on Monday, a Power of Attorney's signature.

We have an email from the Board of Elections that said they don't have an Attorney-In-Fact.

I'm happy to put that into evidence.

We didn't have it Monday because we didn't know their argument of Power of Attorney.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Again, Your Honor, who is "we"?

I thought we had one protester here, a person.

MR. CONOVER:

My colleague, Ms. Mains, on behalf of the protester which is certainly permitted.

This isn't a trial.

It's not a court of law.

We're here for an independent hearing officer operating under Chapter

3501.262.

MR. MENDENHALL:

I want my objection noted, Your Honor, and ruled on.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Do you have an email from the Board of Elections in connection with the Attorney-In-Fact form?

MR. CONOVER:

I do.

May I approach?

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Show it to Mr. Mendenhall.

Mark this as Exhibit C1A.

- - - - -

(Exhibit C1A was marked for identification.)

- - - - -

MR. MENDENHALL:

Your Honor?

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Yes,

Mr. Mendenhall.

MR. MENDENHALL:

I'm going to object to this. You know, this is

obviously a unique situation. The person who holds the office is obviously communicating about Powers of Attorneys with a Board of Elections here apparently on the 23rd.

I have a lot of questions. I don't think this is proper. I don't think it's proper for the Secretary of State to be on this type of email.

If I had an email from a protester who contacted the Board of Elections following up on it, that would be a different story.

He could ask for a public record of the Power of Attorney.

He could examine the Board of Elections documents. I think it's really astounding to have the Secretary of State employee, this Adams, reach out and request whether there's a record of attorney on file or a record of Power of Attorney on file.[…]

MR. MENDENHALL:

We don't know who Stephanie is.

There's no witness to find out who these people are.

If you want to bring the Secretary of State or this Adams in, I would be happy –

MR. MENDENHALL:

It says Adams Ohio Secretary of State.gov.

It looks like an employee of the Secretary of State. It's an Ohio Secretary of State email.

MS. MAINS:

Your Honor, as you can see, the email was sent by me. I would like to clarify that several Boards of Elections in the State of Ohio use if the domain OhioSOS.gov which you will see throughout some of the records --

MR. MENDENHALL:

Objection, Your Honor.

MS. MAINS:

I wanted to explain.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Let her finish.

Then you can have your objection noted.

Go ahead.

MS. MAINS:

I wanted to explain the domain --

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Your point is some Boards of Elections use the domain SOS.GOV?

MS. MAINS:

Yes.

My point is this is an email from Adams County.

MR. MENDENHALL:

There's no foundation for this. I don't know who Adams is. It could be a county. We have a Stark County, Adams County, a Franklin County, but there's no foundation for this email.

There's no -- I don't know. I don't know who this went to. I don't know who responded.

Stephanie responded. You're welcome to subpoena Stephanie to the hearing and tell us who Stephanie is.

Apparently that's who it is. Maybe I would like to talk to the head of the Board of Elections in that county.

This is completely inappropriate, Your Honor.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

All right. That's noted. Let's proceed.

MR. CONOVER:

Thank you, Your Honor.

Again, because Mr. Knechtly does not have a Power of Attorney on file with the Adams County Board of Elections, it's our contention is his wife signing on his behalf is improper and that signature should be invalid. I also want to note that 3501.38(F) says if a circulator knowingly allows an unqualified person to sign a petition or let's someone else sign that petition on a qualified elector's behalf of the --

MR. MENDENHALL:

Objection.

I'm making an objection.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Okay.

Go ahead.

MR. MENDENHALL:

The judge can rule.

I'm addressing you.

I'm objecting to that. He's testifying to facts. There's no foundational basis for it.

MR. CONOVER:

I was citing the statute, if that's okay.

MR. MENDENHALL:

I'm putting on an objection.

Thank you, Your Honor.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

I will note the objection. What statute were you citing?

MR. CONOVER:

I also want to note that 3501.38(F) says if a circulator knowingly allows an unqualified person to sign a petition or let's someone else sign that petition on a qualified elector's behalf of the --

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

I will note

the objection. What statute were you

citing?

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Let me follow

up on your reference to the statute.

Are you contending that this entire

petition is invalid or are you

contending that the signature of Dan

Knechtley is invalid? What is your position?

MR. CONOVER:

Your Honor, at the bottom of every part-petition there's a circulator statement where they verify and sign and declare under penalty of perjury that they witnessed the affixing of every signature and that all signers are qualified to sign the petition.

Again, the statute, the 3501.38(F) says:

"If a circulator knowingly let's someone else sign a petition on someone else's –

MR. MENDENHALL:

Objection, Your Honor.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Let him say what he thinks the statute says and I will verify it. You will have the opportunity.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Your Honor, if I'm in a trial, I have to get the

objection in before the statement comes out.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

That's okay. You will have a chance.

MR. CONOVER:

It says the entire part-petition should be invalid.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

My question to you is, sir, are you objecting to the signature of Mr. Knechtly or are you objecting under that statutory provision to the entire petition?

MR. CONOVER:

Both. So, we believe that the entire part-petition should be invalidated because this circulator, it looks like Teresa Wier, testified under perjury or signed under perjury that she saw each of the electors sign this petition.

There's an affidavit that says she did not because she thought this individual had a Power of Attorney.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

I understand.

Mr. Mendenhall?

MR. MENDENHALL:

There were two objections obviously. We have no foundation to whether or not there was a Power of Attorney.

We have Stephanie, whoever that is, hearsay evidence here.

Then, the second thing is the issue of the statute. I mean, it's a knowingly basis, so the circulator has to knowingly violate that provision, so there is absolutely no evidence being presented here that the circulator themselves -- this would have been, I guess, Teresa -- I can't see the last name, Wier maybe, that she knowingly have someone sign this petition without a proper Power of Attorney. Again, that person, the petition

circulator, could have been subpoenaed here today and we could get to the bottom of it.

That hasn't happened.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

As I would understand this, Mr. Conover was pointing out the provisions of 3501.38(F) suggesting that the entire petition should be invalidated.

Now, you have something further to add to that?

MR. MENDENHALL:

Your Honor, I can suggest anything.

I can suggest we end this thing right now.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

You have a motion to do that?

We didn't get to that yet.

MR. MENDENHALL:

He's proceeding and suggesting things with no

foundation, no basis in fact, no witnesses, and he has done nothing to prepare for this hearing on that issue.

"Knowingly" is important.

Somehow he has to establish "knowingly."

He can't testify to "knowingly."

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

I recognize that.

MR. CONOVER:[…]

I mentioned there were 7 signatures that the Maras Campaign did not, I want to say contest or oppose in their hearing and pre-hearing brief or letter, and this was one of those.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Your Honor, before this goes too deeply, I want to make clear I'm not conceding anything today. You know, I got onto this very rapidly, very late. I'm not conceding anything as I sit here and review the evidence.

I don't want that to be taken as fact to the court that we conceded 7 signatures.

I'm not conceding a thing.

I'm willing to look at them and be reasonable, but as of now I'm not going to concede and I'm not going to concede this signatures in particular.

Thank you.

MR. CONOVER:

For D-5, moving on, this is Clinton County part-petition 427570, line 4, the voter is Ellen Watkins and here she put in the city, village or township Clinton, which is again for Clinton County.

She does not provide the accurate city, village, or township.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Which exhibit are you referring to?

MR. CONOVER:

D-5.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

What signature?

MR. CONOVER:

Line 4, Ellen Watkins. She includes the county in the city, village or township rather than the city, village, or township.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

She wrote the county instead of the city?

MR. CONOVER:

That's right.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Again, I'm going to object to this. It's simply that I don't know and there's no evidence presented that there's no township called Clinton or no village called Clinton. I certainly know of villages named Clinton.

We have one right down the street from Akron.

You know, there may be a village named Clinton or a township named in Clinton.

Do we have a map and foundation for that?

We have another argument why I should proceed, but this is the type of testimony by this lawyer that I don't think is appropriate.

I think that's why we need a witness on the stand.

I would like my objection noted.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

It's noted.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Thank you.

MR. CONOVER:

Moving on, Your

Honor, to D-8, this is Delaware County part-petition 427701, and this is line 3. This is Rebecca Scott.

You can see on the part-petition she wrote 2000 US Highway 23 North in Delaware, but her voting registration on file with the Board of Elections is 78 Shroyer Park,

S-H-R-O-Y-E-R, Park. We would put forward that she did not put her correct voting residence on file with the Board of Elections and therefore that should be invalidated.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Objection.

Again, Your Honor, I don't know whether a change of registration form was filled out. Maybe it was at the Board of Elections. Maybe it was entered. We have no testimony. We have no witnesses as to what this contention is.

MR. CONOVER:

That's another one that the Maras Campaign did not include in their pre-hearing brief.

I want to talk about --

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

What do you mean didn't include it?

MR. CONOVER:

I mentioned there were seven signatures that I said concede. Maybe I should have said didn't opposed in their pre-hearing briefs. There were 65 signatures in the initial protest letter.

They provided in their pre-hearing brief information on 58 of them and said 58 of them are valid, meaning the difference of 65 is of 7, that they agree with are -- I'm making the --

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

You're pointing out that this Rebecca Scott challenge that you're voicing is one that --

MR. CONOVER:

Was not mentioned in any of their filings that they were opposing.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Okay.

MR. MENDENHALL:

They're being mentioned today, Your Honor.

This is the hearing to decide it. We are not conceding a single name.

MR. CONOVER:[...]

This is for Michael Young. On the part-petition he wrote his voting residence was 3680 US 23 in Chillicothe.

As you can see from the information from the Board of Elections, he's registered at 3682 US Highway 23.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Your Honor, same objection as before.

There's no information as to whether there hadbeen any change of address form submitted.

We could have that witness here to testify. I want that noted for the record as well.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

It's noted.

MR. CONOVER:

Yes, Your Honor. Josh Sharp. If you look at the voter registration it's 2171 Baptist Hill Road, so both the house number and the street are incorrect.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Your Honor, I have the same objection to all of this. We have no idea what was going on with this particular voter, elector. We have no idea whether there has been a change of registration form. I see a registration from 2017 here.

I think, you know, since we're all testifying -- I guess the lawyers are testifying -- we know how the Board of Elections work and depending on a rural county or an urban area you can have a lot of confusion in terms of the input and updating of voter data. I think there needs to be some evidence that that has not occurred with each and every one of these voters. There is nothing here about that.

MR. CONOVER:

Your Honor, in response to all of these I would only say that the Secretary of State has the Ohio voter registration database online available to search for every registered voter in the state. When you pull up the correct person by county and name, it gives their address, and actually the Maras Campaign included that throughout their pre-hearing brief, that information. I would only say if you pull any one of these folks up it will say the exact same thing that we put in our brief. That's how we verify whether these folks were correct or not. I would only say that again to point out we're using the same information as the Maras Campaign. When we from the Boards of Elections, we requested the entire voter file which would include any sort of initial registration or some gave us a certificate of registration which shows what it is.

It's certified by the Board of Elections. I would only say that we included everything we got from the Boards of Elections relative to the voter registration files.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Your Honor, of course I have an objection.

My objection, I think, is exhibited by the words being used here:

We have access to the files, we reviewed the files. You know, who is this "we" here?

The person who is missing here is protester. They're absent. I do not understand how this hearing can proceed without a protester. I think I made that objection clear.

I hear his testimony we, we, we, we, we.Where is "I"? "I checked this record."I don't know where, for example, this came from. It's a voter registration update form. I don't know anything about it beyond that.I have no knowledge beyond that. It's a voter registration form. I imagine it's in the voter file.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

You just agreed to the admission of it. We spent an hour before we began and you went through all of them and he went through all of yours. We are clear on the record that you agreed to admit these and he agreed to admit yours. What he's doing is explaining what these are because he has challenges to -- I'm not sure whether he's down to 35 or however many challenges to the signatures.

He's simply pointing out for the record which signatures are being challenged and the basis for those.

I have no idea at this point whether these are valid or invalid.

You have an objection to them.

I recognize that.

At some point when we finish I will have to go through every one of these and catalog your objections and make a decision with respect to the validity or invalidity of this challenge. That's all we're doing here.

There is no testimony.

You have made that clear.

There is no protester here.

If I understand Mr. Conover's presentation, he's relying on the documents.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Let me make something clear in terms of what my objection is, if I may.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Certainly.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Both parties to this, including the absent party, havesubmitted the same documents for the most part, so there is no basis to object to the documents.

We have submitted the documents. This document, I imagine, is in ours. I can double check quickly. I imagine it's there.

The purpose the document is being used for and what it purports to inform the hearing officer of, Your Honor, what it purports to inform you of I don't agree with what it purports to do and the information that it purports to provide and any clarity.

I don't think it provides any clarity in terms of making the decision ultimately.

This is a document.

It's in the Secretary of State's possession, but I don't know that there's not another document, for example.

This is not conclusive as to what it's purported to do.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

It is not conclusive in your view.

I understand that.

MR. CONOVER:

Moving on to the next one Your Honor, D-14, this is Ross County part-petition 428542[…]

MR. MENDENHALL:

Same objection, your Honor.

MR. CONOVER:

I'm fine to let him have a standing objection if that makes things easier for everyone, Your Honor.

MR. MENDENHALL:

We're almost done with these, aren't we?

MR. CONOVER:

We have 15 left.

MR. MENDENHALL:

I may have different objections for every one that you bring up.

MR. CONOVER:

The next one, Your Honor, is D-15. This is Scioto County part-petition 428560[…]

MR. MENDENHALL:

Same objection.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Noted.

MR. CONOVER:

D-16 is next, Your Honor.

It's Shelby County part-petition 428587[…] On this one, Your Honor, on the part-petition he wrote 223 W. Bomford, B-O-M-F-O-R-D, when the residence on Filing with Board of Elections is 2231/2.

The Secretary of State does not require apartments to be included but I think it would be our contention, Your Honor, this is not an apartment number but this is an entirely new address on file with the Board of Elections.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Objection, Your Honor.

There's testimony what an apartment is now.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Got it.

MR. CONOVER:

The next one is D-20.

Your Honor, this is Warren County part-petition 428744[…]

If you look at the information from the Board of Elections, his voting residence is 2479 Mason Montgomery Road in Mason. We claim it's not a valid residence on file with the Board of Elections.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Objection.

I can turn that into an ongoing objection. The interpretation that that's the final word on this, you know, assumes something that maybe it could have been in evidence that a change of registration was filed or in the process. We just don't know this. We don't have a witness here. We don't have a protester here. These changes of address -- people do move.

The election is coming up and, you know, it certainly seems entirely possible that somebody could be changing the address. We need to know whether or not they are involved in that process. We don't have any information on that. That's the objection that I want to be ongoing here.

MR. CONOVER:

The next one, Your Honor, is D-21. I'm going to talk about D-21, 22 and 23 all together.

They are the same petition and they are signed in sequence. It's Wyandot county part-petition 428117 and it's line 3 which is Cody Jones; line 4, which is Mary Jones; and line 5, which is Robert Buckingham. In each their city, village or township they just simply write "upper" as the political subdivision in which they live. That is not, we would contend, not a valid city, village, or township in the State of Ohio.

The next ones, Your Honor --

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

How do you verify that Upper isn't a city?

MR. CONOVER:

It's referring to Upper Sandusky.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

How do you know that?

MR. CONOVER:

That's where the address triggers to.

MR. CONOVER:

We are done with the addresses. We will move into years.

I think we have eight or nine left. I will try to zoom through these as quickly as we can, Your Honor.

The first one is D-24. It's Champaign County part-petition 427525, line 1. The voter is Marissa Rigsby, R-I-G-S-B-Y. On here, Your Honor, the date of signing she puts 4/23 along with the next one, Andi Grow, who is the next person on this, so not including the year.

We believe the year is important in affixing the date to the part-petition. Again, we discussed this in our brief, Your Honor, a signature can actually be invalidated if it's signed more than a year after the petition was filed or signed by the candidate.

We think the year is important. I will point out just in the interest of being transparent the Election File Manual says that the month and date faith is sufficient. We do believe that is an incorrect reading of the law or at least believe it shouldn't be that because we believe the year to be important because a signature can be invalidated for that. I want to note obviously the election official may say that, so --

MR. MENDENHALL:

I was getting ready to make the objection. I appreciate your frankness with the Court. The Election Manual is directing circulators to get the month and the day, not the year.

MR. CONOVER:

Line 11, Timothy Risner. This date, 4/23/20, again is prior to the statement of candidacy signed by the candidate on 3/29/22.

Moving on --

MR. MENDENHALL:

Objection.

I see other lines. It looks like squiggles. This is obviously a photocopy. You can see after the 020 there's another line. Maybe it went off the page. I don't know what happened. It looks like there are other things there. We have the attorney testifying to his interpretation of what happened here instead of this gentleman or the protester telling us what was on that petition.

We don't have the original petition anyway. I would just like my objection noted.

MR. CONOVER:

[...] To be honest, for the independent candidacy it was all cited to in our brief.

It's a news article, a podcast, and something posted on the Maras Campaign website just a piece.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Do you want to address that then?

MR. CONOVER:

Yes. I'm happy to do that, Your Honor.

Again, to be an independent candidate you have to -- if you have been previously a partisan candidate, you need to disaffiliate in good faith prior to filing as an independent candidate.

As Your Honor well knows, there's the Morrison case.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

What's your authority for that?

MR. CONOVER:

There is State ex rel. Guest v Husted which cites 2018-Ohio-3161 cited in our brief. The independent statute is 3513.257 I think. I hope. If not, it's cited in the brief, Your Honor.

Again, as we mentioned you can't register as an independent in the positive sense but there is the Morrison case from the 6th Circuit that went through a number of factors and focused on both pre- and post-petition submission evidence.

In that case, the individual had submitted petitions to appear as a Republican, as a Republican congressional candidate from the primary ballot and ultimately was not certified to the ballot, changed their mind, and tried to appear on the ballot as an independent, did not vote in the Republican primary and then after the fact continued to support Republican candidates for office.

So, ultimately it was determined that the individual was not an independent for Congress and therefore did not disaffiliate in good faith. We believe the facts here are similar to Morrison.

The candidate served -- she provided an affidavit to Sidney Powell in Ms. Powell's attempts to overturn President Trump's 2020 election loss. We think she has a long history of being a member of the Republican party and a supporter of President Trump. She attempted to appear --

MR. MENDENHALL:

Objection, Your Honor.

MR. CONOVER:

-- on the ballot as a Republican.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Did you say she submitted a petition?

MR. CONOVER:

She submitted a petition to appear on the ballot as a Republican for the Secretary of State's office in this election.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

When was that?

MR. MENDENHALL:

My objection is pre this testimony that he's giving, which I think is inappropriate. So she gave an affidavit to somebody.

There's no foundation for that, and you even said she's -- what was the word -- she often supported Republican candidates in the past. Is that what you said?

MR. CONOVER:

I was explaining the Morrison case when I said that.

MR. MENDENHALL:

You were talking about her history.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Direct your comments to me.

MR. MENDENHALL:

I'm sorry.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

I have a question for Mr. Conover. Did you say that Ms. Maras submitted a petition to the Secretary of State's office to run as a Republican in this race?

MR. CONOVER:

Yes, Your Honor.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Is that somewhere in evidence here?

MR. CONOVER:

I cited to the Supreme Court case that she filed after she was de -- or she was not verified to the ballot. I do not have the

evidence.[…]

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

You are relying on the Maras versus LaRosa case?

MR. CONOVER:

That's right. It's all outlined in that case. Again, she tried to be a Republican. She wasn't able to be a Republican in this race and is now trying to be an independent.

In addition, she gave a podcast interview after being certified to the ballot.

It was on the Millenial Millie show. It's in the brief.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Objection.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Is this in the brief or is it in evidence?

MR. CONOVER:

It was cited in the brief. All this is in the brief. We didn't provide a thumb drive with the YouTube video on it.

MR. CONOVER:[...]Finally, on the Maras County website they have their press releases and it shows that she attempted to speak to the Hilliard Republican club in the last six weeks or so after submitting her petitions was ultimately --

MR. MENDENHALL:

Objection.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

How would I know that she did that?

MR. CONOVER:

It's all available on their website.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

I would have to go to the website?

MR. CONOVER:

Yes.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

There's no evidence of that here?

MR. CONOVER:

No.

That's all we have on behalf of the protester, Your Honor.[…]

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

Thank you.

All right.

Mr. Mendenhall?

*****MR. MENDENHALL:

Your Honor, I do have some witnesses. I guess at this point -- there are a couple of ways I can proceed.

Obviously I have put my objections on the record here. I guess I can go through these.[…]

MR. MENDENHALL:[…]

Your Honor, I know you don't have time to do this.

What I have on my notes on this that I was going to cross-examine the protester on is I was going to ask which ones were counted in the total, whether he had checked the check marks on these, or are there two check marks in excess of the number of signatures that were actually reported as having been valid? The point to that is that our belief on some of these petitions is that not everything was counted properly on these petitions and was not submitted properly.

For example, this one, I wanted to talk to him to him about that issue but I don't have a protester here. I guess right off the bat not having a protester to cross-examine is really a handicap to my client.

How did all this information come together?

Where did it come from?

How did he determine that the counts on each of these petitions were correct in the first place?

MR. CONOVER:

I would only say, Your Honor, we didn't talk about A-1 or A-2. I would be happy to sit here and go through those but we tried to narrow our list down and didn't speak about either of those. That's all I'll say.

MR. MENDENHALL:

I appreciate that they didn't talk about those.

I think the real point is they don't want to talk about them because it shows how unreliable this witness is. This protester is unreliable.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

You didn't subpoena him.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Your Honor, first of all, in the first instance I don't believe the hearing is -- I think the hearing is invalid because there is no protester. There is no protester. I don't have to subpoena a party.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

I thought you said you wanted to cross-examine him.

MR. MENDENHALL:

I do. I don't have to subpoena a party in a case to cross-examine him. It's up to them to lay down their evidence, Your Honor.

JUSTICE O'DONNELL:

They just did.

Whether they made it or not, I don't know, but I will tell you when I finish.

MR. MENDENHALL:

Okay.