“My goal is to make sure the integrity of the office is upheld,” said Montgomery County Board of Elections director Jeff Rezabek. “We make sure that happens correctly, and that people aren’t playing games.”
The document is a communication to the elections board from the board’s attorney and contains information that election officials called “privileged.” The board did not authorize the document passing hands, Rezabek said.
Montgomery County election board member Barbara Gorman last week called the leak “totally inappropriate and unacceptable.”
The protest against McDonald was filed by Montgomery County Democratic Party Chairman Mohamed Al-Hamdani and a Republican named Brenda Blauser earlier this month. The complaint alleges McDonald — a longtime Democrat — is not qualified to be on the Republican primary ballot because she did not file a declaration of intent to run as a Republican, among other items.
McDonald is the only Republican on the ballot for the seat, meaning if she runs in the primary she will face off against Democratic incumbent Debbie Lieberman in November.
Attorney Don McTigue represented the protesters instead of Dennis Lieberman, the Montgomery County Democrat Party legal representative and husband of Debbie Lieberman.
McTigue told board members last week that he likely received the document from the Montgomery County Democrat Party’s attorney.
Dennis Lieberman told the Dayton Daily News Monday that the document was not labeled as confidential or privileged, calling the investigation a “distraction.”
Al-Hamdani agreed.
“It’s my position that the document in question is a public document,” he said. “Just because a lawyer drafts something for a public body does not make it privileged.”
Montgomery County Republican Party spokesperson Wes Farno said he felt it was apparent during the hearing that Rezabek and Montgomery County boardmembers alike felt that it was a privileged document.
“We should move forward with that investigation, no matter what members of the Democrat Party want to do,” Farno said.
Rezabek said he hopes to gather more information in the coming weeks, calling the purported leak “disappointing.”
“If we’re doing things fairly and openly and honestly, people will trust the system,” he said. “But if somebody is trying to sway it, that not only hurts that person, but it hurts us in the county and as a state.”
McDonald’s protest hearing ended in a tied vote that will be decided by the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office.
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