Elections director's residency confirmed

The King County Canvassing Board declined Thursday to revoke the voter registration of Elections Director Sherril Huff, who is running to keep her office in the Feb. 3 election.

The board said Christopher Clifford, another candidate for the $146,040 post, failed to show that Huff doesn't live at the Seattle address under which she registered as a King County voter Dec. 9.

The board also said there was a lack of "clear and convincing evidence" that Huff intends to move back to Kitsap County — where she has lived most of her life — if she loses King County's first countywide vote-by-mail election.

Huff signed a lease on a house in Seattle's Rainier Beach neighborhood the same day she transferred her voter registration from Kitsap to King County. Two days later, on Dec. 11, she registered as a candidate for the job that voters decided in November should become an elected position.

Before the Canvassing Board ruling, Huff said, she'd moved into her new home Dec. 16 or 17. She could not be reached for comment after the board issued its written decision.

Clifford, an Orting High School teacher who lives in Renton, said he will pursue a separate claim in King County Superior Court that Huff moved to King County too late to qualify as a candidate.

Clifford said he will ask the court to invalidate the Feb. 3 election.

"The fact is now, we have a documented timeline that shows she had in fact not moved and had not spent the night here in King County until after Dec. 11," Clifford said.

The Canvassing Board decision was signed by Chief Civil Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Kevin Wright and Metropolitan King County Council Clerk Anne Noris. Huff, who normally sits as the third member of the board, did not vote on her case.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com

Information in this article, originally published January 16, 2009, was corrected January 16, 2009. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that King County Elections Director Sherril Huff is eligible to run in the Feb. 3 election to keep her job, the county Canvassing Board ruled Thursday. The correction reads that the King County Canvassing Board declined Thursday to revoke the voter registration of Elections Director Sherril Huff.