Something smells at 2885 Brownlee Avenue in Columbus, Ohio.

I strongly recommend that the Ohio Republican Party get on the case before it’s too late. Today’s the last day to challenge voters who registered early in Ohio before the run up to Election Day.

Here’s the stench: An entire houseful of young, non-Ohioan Democrat activists have used the Brownlee Avenue address to register themselves to vote in the Buckeye State and secure absentee ballots under extremely shady circumstances — all while mobilizing a large effort to register thousands of others for absentee and early voting. The activists are leaders of a group called “Vote From Home ‘08.” The group is self-identified as having “extensive experience with political organizing, election administration, and Democratic politics.” They were hailed as the “Justice League” by a Daily Kos blogger. Their Facebook page brags: “Want to turn the Presidential election blue in a key swing state? Vote from Home is a political organization that was founded by a team of young people for the purpose of assisting, aiding, and tracking voters to elect progressive candidates to the White House. Encouraged by the excitement of the 2008 elections and the movement around the Democratic candidates, Vote From Home will be in Ohio seeking to deliver 10,000 votes to Democratic candidates statewide.”

My friends at Palestra.net, a network of young reporters who have been doing the voter and registration fraud reporting that the MSM has been slow to do, have a breaking investigative report on how several members of the Democrat Vote From Home team — all Rhodes, Marshall, Fulbright, and Truman Scholars studying abroad — are turning up on Franklin County voter rolls despite having no bona fide residence in Ohio and admittedly having little to no knowledge about the state before descending on it in August to sign up other new voters in a rush to put 10,000 Obama supporters on the rolls.

Watch:

Here’s the page listing the Vote From Home team. Take a good look at these three, for starters:

Here’s the Franklin County, Ohio registered voter search page.

Here’s just one of several Vote From Home activists, Daniel Hemel, who registered to vote with the Brownlee Ave. address listed as his “home:”

The Franklin County, Ohio site shows that Hemel was mailed an absentee ballot on October 1.

Palestra reporters Shelby Holliday and Tiffany Wilson visited the Vote From Home “home” in search of Hemel and were told that the Scarsdale, NY native and Harvard grad had returned to school — he’s a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University in England studying for an M.Phil in International Relations — and had no plans to return to Ohio.

You’ll recognize another of the names and faces from the Vote From Home team. This is Marc Gustafson, a driving force behind the effort and in front of the cameras:

He is also registered to vote in Franklin County, Ohio at the same Brownlee address and was mailed an absentee ballot on September 30:

He’s also the same activist Palestra reporter Shelby Holliday interviewed in her “Thug Thizzle” report. Gustafson’s the one who bragged about the free shuttle program for the homeless Ohioans for Obama:

“It’s a perfect opportunity for them to come in, register at a temporary address like a homeless shelter or a YMCA or something like that. They can register at that address because they don’t know where they’re going to be tomorrow or next week.”

Where’s Gustafson? Not in Ohio. He’s a Marshall Scholar at the Oxford University in England who worked as a field coordinator for the Howard Dean Campaign in Rhode Island, Iowa and New Hampshire. According to campaign contribution reports, he lists New York as his residence.

According to the Ohio Secretary of State’s page, you must be “a resident of Ohio for at least 30 days immediately before the election in which you want to vote.” The guidelines also state:

Generally, a person’s residence is the place where the person’s habitation is fixed (i.e., where the person lives on a permanent basis) and the place where the person intends to return
whenever the person is absent.

...a person’s temporary presence in Ohio, such as during a vacation or working in
Ohio on a temporary basis, does not make the person eligible to register and to vote in Ohio.

Gustafson’s friend and business partner, Heather Halstead, is another Vote From Home activist who shows up in Franklin County, Ohio voter rolls:

She is based in New York, went to Dartmouth for college, and lists New York as her residence in campaign contribution reports. No connection to Ohio other than the brief period she spent signing up others — and herself — to vote in the swing state.

Halstead was mailed an absentee ballot on September 30.

Vote From Home team member Jennifer Kyle, whose bio states that she works for ShoreBank International in the Washington, DC area, is also registered to vote in Franklin County, OH using the Brownlee address:

Kyle was mailed an absentee ballot on October 4.

Vote From Home team member Greg Nolan also used the Brownlee address to register to vote in Franklin County, OH:

He is based in Florida, where he attended college and was “active in Democratic politics,” and is headed to Stanford for graduate school. No ties to Ohio other than his brief stint working with Vote for Change.

And on and on it goes. Shelby at Palestra tells me that some 12 activists associated with Vote From Home may have fraudulently registered and that some have voted already. If they were this breathtakingly careless or brazenly reckless with their own registrations, imagine what damage they might have done in their voter registration drive — and what damage they may yet do in following through on absentee ballots with those voters.

Will the rest of the MSM pick up on the invaluable investigative reporting of Palestra’s intrepid young reporters? Or will they look the other way? Will out-of-town punks — all using 2885 Brownlee Ave. in Columbus as their ballot drop house — help turn Ohio blue? Will the Democrat Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, bury her head in the sand?

The ball is in the Ohio GOP’s court. Don’t drop it.

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