GOTHAM-TO-OHIO VOTE SCAM EYED
NYERS' HOME AWAY FROM HOME PROBED AS A FRAUD OUTPOST
By JEANE MacINTOSH
CROCK HOUSE: This Columbus house, rented out by the owner of a Brooklyn home was listed as a residence by 13 people, including four New Yorkers.
October 20, 2008
Four well-heeled New York Democrats are under investigation by an Ohio prosecutor for setting up a temporary home in the swing state - where two have already cast their ballots - just so that their votes will be counted there, The Post has learned.
The targets of the probe - including the daughter and son-in-law of a New York City real-estate titan, a former New York Sun reporter and a Bank of New York Mellon executive - are connected to Vote From Home, a Manhattan-based political action committee set up to get voters to the polls in Ohio, where residents are allowed to cast ballots 29 days before Election Day, investigators said.
The New Yorkers and nine other members from across the country are accused of packing themselves into a modest three-bedroom house in Columbus, waiting 30 days - and then registering, even though the Buckeye State is not their permanent residence.
Under Ohio law, a person who comes to the state for "temporary purposes only," without the intention of making it the "permanent place of abode" is not considered a resident. New permanent residents must live in Ohio 30 days before registering.
Four group members, including two of the New Yorkers, have already cast ballots, and six others requested absentee ballots from the county elections board.
Franklin County, Ohio, prosecutor Ron O'Brien launched the investigation after student reporters at palestra.net, a Fox News affiliate, discovered the mass registration effort at the home in a working-class neighborhood on Brownlee Avenue.
"Our board of elections referred 13 suspicious registrations to us, all from people with out-of-state addresses, all of whom claim to be living in a three-bedroom house in Columbus," O'Brien said Friday.
Vote From Home is registered to the East 82nd Street brownstone of Heather Halstead, daughter of Halstead Properties founder Clark Halstead Jr. She and her husband, NYU grad Marc Gustafson, are among those under scrutiny.
A subsequent Post review of election-board and other records found the New Yorkers involved are:
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