Xerxes Wilson

The News Journal

New Castle County Executive Thomas P. Gordon is challenging Matt Meyer's residency.

Meyer in September defeated Gordon in the Democratic primary.

If Meyer is disqualified, Gordon could be nominated for the Nov. 8 ballot.

New Castle County Executive Thomas P. Gordon has asked state election officials to disqualify Matt Meyer from the November general election ballot, claiming the winner of the September Democratic primary has not lived in the county long enough to qualify for office.



Gordon's personal attorney, Sidney S. Liebesman, on Tuesday filed a complaint with the Delaware Department of Elections, saying tax documents filed by Meyer prove he has not lived in the county the five consecutive years required to be executive.



Meyer defeated Gordon's attempt at an unprecedented fourth term by winning the Sept. 13 primary and is set to face Republican Mark Blake in the Nov. 8 general election. In recent decades, the Democratic primary has served as the de facto general election for county executive because Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1 in the county.

Officials said if the complaint proves successful, it would lead to the county's Democratic Party nominating a replacement candidate. That candidate could be Gordon, and the issue may lead to a protracted legal fight over the state's residency rules.

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Meyer maintains he meets the residency requirement and said the complaint is a "farcical" allegation spun by "people who want a government that is not led by public service, that is led by something else.



"The voters have spoken, and they have chosen a county government that is based on public service, not self-service," Meyer said. "There is absolutely no legal question about whether I have been a resident for the past five years."

Gordon declined to comment for this story. The complaint was filed on his behalf as a former candidate and registered voter, not in his capacity as executive.

Under state rules, Meyer has to have been a resident of Delaware since November 2011 to qualify for executive. The complaint states that Meyer in 2011 filed a nonresident income tax return in which “he swore under penalty of perjury that he was a non-resident of Delaware for the full year of 2011.”

Meyer declined to discuss the income tax document until he submits more information to the Department of Elections.

The complaint also says Meyer has not paid Wilmington wage taxes in the past five years, despite claiming he is a city resident. It also said that Meyer did not have a vehicle registered in his name in Delaware for several years before May 2012. Meyer lives in the Trinity Vicinity section of Wilmington.

Meyer's defeat of Gordon came after a campaign where the challenger questioned the ethics of the incumbent. Liebesman said Meyer, who fashioned himself as a proponent of "ethics and transparency," must now prove he has followed state rules.

"It is not just where you lay your head down once a month or where you send a bill for convenience," Liebesman said. "It is where you reside. He has to prove that."

Liebesman declined to say how they obtained the information cited in the complaint. He said they do not have possession of the tax documents in the complaint but learned of the issue from "reliable and credible sources" that he declined to name.

The complaint notes Meyer also didn’t register to vote in the state until August 2012.



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Meyer denied the wage tax allegation and plans to submit additional paperwork to state officials. As evidence of his residency, Meyer provided a copy off his Delaware drivers license issued in September 2011.



"It will all become clear once we file with the Department of Elections," Meyer said.

Meyer, who grew up in New Castle County and has previously worked as an attorney in the city, said he moved all his belongings from Brooklyn, New York, to Delaware in 2009 before he began training for his role as an economic adviser with the U.S. State Department abroad. That position took him to Iraq in 2010, and he returned in January 2011, he said.



He said he began looking for jobs that year and went to work for Gov. Jack Markell's administration in early 2012. Shortly after, he began working at the Washington, D.C.-based Potomac Law Group, a firm that specializes in providing clients with expert attorneys who work remotely. He began teaching at Prestige Academy in Wilmington in 2013.

On Thursday, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who defeated Gordon in the 2008 Democratic primary for county executive, came to Meyer's defense.

"We are seeing an interesting similarity with Donald Trump, who is saying he won't accept the outcome of the election and got his start in politics ... as someone who kept challenging whether or not President Obama was genuinely an American," Coons said in a telephone interview.

Coons said he has known Meyer for 12 years as a member of the Delaware State Bar Association and that he's confident that the issue will be behind him shortly. Coons was a special guest at a Meyer fundraiser in Wilmington earlier this week.



This is not the first time Meyer's residency qualifications have been challenged.

State Election Commissioner Elaine Manlove, to whom the complaint is addressed, said Division of Motor Vehicles records and voter registration are the primary ways election officials determine candidates' residency when they file to run for office.



When Meyer registered, he was asked to provide additional evidence and produced a credit card bill addressed to his residence in Wilmington that was enough to qualify, Manlove said.

Gordon’s attorney said that given the evidence they've noted, the credit card bill is insufficient for Meyer to prove his residency.

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"We are expecting that he produce real documentation showing that he was a resident during the relevant time period and that is something much more than a credit card bill," Liebesman said.

Manlove said residency complaints are common during election years, but have rarely, if ever, led to a candidate's disqualification. She said the issue is complicated by the fact that many people have a primary residence and a vacation home in different counties or states.



She has been the election commissioner since 1999 and has never disqualified a candidate because of a residency issue. That may be down to the vagueness of state law in defining exactly what defines residency.

"I don't think that is defined in the code," Manlove said. "I don't have investigators. We don't follow people home at night."



Manlove said she has asked Meyer to present to her office all residency information he has. She said she hopes to have the issue resolved by the end of the week.



"We have to get this off our plate," Manlove said. "We can't let this hang. Absentee ballots are already out."

The issue may be appealed to the New Castle County Superior Court if election officials are satisfied by Meyer's evidence, Liebesman said.



If Meyer is disqualified, the New Castle County Democratic Party would be responsible for nominating a replacement candidate. Beyond the qualifications for office, there is no legal guideline for who they must pick.

Liebesman said he feels Gordon should be considered in that case.

"It just makes the most sense that if the Democratic Party has the opportunity to certify another candidate, it would be Tom Gordon based on his experience, the fact he beat Mark Blake in the last general election, and he only lost by about 2,000 votes in the primary," Liebesman said.

Blake could not immediately be reached for comment.

Contact Xerxes Wilson at (302) 324-2787 or xwilson@delawareonline.com. Follow @Ber_Xerxes on Twitter.

Editor's note: Story updated to reflect Meyer's Delaware drivers license.