A Georgia administrative judge ruled that state House District 161 candidate David Dillie can remain on the ballot in his campaign against Republican incumbent Bill Hitchens, after calls to disqualify the Democrat amid allegations that he voted in another state’s primary this year.
Dillie, 24, was born in Georgia and lived in Los Vegas before returning to the Savannah area two years ago. He registered this spring to run against the 79-year-old incumbent, saying the district, which represents parts of Effingham County and west Chatham County, deserves change.
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Yet in September facts emerged that a primary ballot with Dillie’s signature was cast in Nevada in its June primary, even after Dillie had voted in person in the Peach State’s primary in May. Voting in two states would disqualify him for office and potentially violate Georgia elections law.
Since then, the Democrat had professed his innocence repeatedly, telling The Current GA someone else must have turned in the ballot, which had been sent to his former address in Nevada. That state mails absentee ballots to every registered voter, and Dillie had not proactively canceled his Nevada voter registration when he moved.
Judge Kimberly Schroer’s ruling in favor of Dillie and against the Georgia Secretary of State, which had requested Dillie’s disqualification, means that the state House District 161 race remains competitive and could be one of a handful of seats that might flip from Republican to Democrat.
In the Thursday hearing to consider his validity as a candidate, Dillie, a pipefitter and construction worker, testified under oath that he did not submit the Nevada ballot. That fact was confirmed by his former foster father, Hunter Cain, at whose house he lived when he resided in Las Vegas and the address where his absentee ballot had been sent.
The attorney for the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, Elizabeth Young, did not believe the argument. She brought forth an alternative theory: Dillie, who had traveled to Las Vegas for a student competition in June, submitted the ballot himself after a drunken night with his foster father at the city’s casinos before flying back to Savannah.
Judge Schroer found the state’s argument lacking. In her ruling she noted that the investigator working for the Secretary of State’s office did not have video evidence showing who had delivered the ballot at the Los Vegas dropbox where it had been submitted. Furthermore, the state did not subject the signature on the Nevada ballot to an expert and could only speculate about a motive for Dillie to cast a vote in another state.
“The Court concludes that the preponderance of the evidence in the record did not prove that Mr. Dillie cast a ballot in Nevada during his visit to Las Vegas,” Judge Schroer ruled. “More likely than not, based on the evidence on the record that Mr. Cain either signed Mr. Dillie’s ballot envelope or caused it to be signed before dropping it off” in a drop box on the date of Nevada’s primary.
Cain, who testified during the hearing, took full responsibility for the ballot being submitted, saying it was a snafu associated with civics lessons that he gives the youths in his care.
A school teacher and longtime foster parent, Cain told the judge that each election cycle he receives numerous absentee ballots at his residence addressed to many of his former foster children who have aged out of the system. Ballots are sent to his home for many reasons, he explained, due to the fact that the young adults never changed their official residence or, as military soldiers, have no other permanent address.
Cain told the court that he opens such ballots and uses them to explain to the foster youths how to research candidates and how the election process works.
One of the teens in the house in June must have filled out Dillie’s ballot during such a lesson, he said.
Cain said that he didn’t want to put any of his foster youth in trouble and said he should be held responsible.
“I apologize to the State of Georgia if my carelessness is causing all of this, but I mean, I’m not sure what to do past I take full responsibility and I’m working with my Clark County elections department on this issue,” Cain said
Under Georgia law, a person who goes to another state and votes there is considered to have lost Georgia residency. State House candidates must have lived in Georgia for at least two years, and in the district they seek to represent for at least one year before the election.
When the judge asked the attorney for the Secretary of State’s office for a possible motive for Dillie to have submitted the Nevada ballot, the attorney, Young, said it could have been to help Cain, who was a candidate running in the primary.
Judge Schroer agreed. Her ruling concluded that while Cain’s behavior may be troubling, that the matter of Dillie’s qualifications to stand in the election in Georgia had been met. His trip to Las Vegas, she wrote, had no bearing on his Georgia residency requirements.
