As the elected official charged with overseeing fair elections, Secretary of State Karen Handel must be scrupulous in keeping partisan leanings out of her decisions. The way she handled a residency question involving a Democratic candidate for the Public Service Commission suggests she has failed in that fundamental duty.

When questions were initially raised about the eligibility of Jim Powell to run for the District 4 seat on the PSC, the case was taken to a state administrative law judge. After hearing the evidence, the judge ruled in June that Powell satisfied the residency requirement, citing the fact the candidate spent 60 percent of his time in Towns County; he attended church, paid taxes, registered two cars and had voted three times there, and he listed his Hiawassee home as his address on his driver's license.

The judge acknowledged that Powell and his wife still owned a house in Cobb County, but he also noted that Powell's wife had not yet retired and that upon retirement, she planned to join her husband in Hiawassee. And while Powell and his wife still claimed a homestead exemption on their Cobb house, the judge noted that Powell had attempted to shift his homestead exemption from Cobb to Towns County in 2007 but missed the deadline and had to reapply in 2008.

That constitutes a convincing and reasonable case that Powell did indeed live in Towns County and met state residency requirements. Nonetheless, just days before the July 15 primary, Handel, a Republican, decided to ignore the ruling of the administrative law judge and remove Powell from the ballot.

Powell says he was never informed of that decision, and learned of it only when he called Handel's staff to confirm a rumor that she had bounced him from the ballot.

"Not only did she overrule a well-reasoned opinion of a state administrative law judge, she mismanaged how the matter was communicated to all 159 county Boards of Election as well as to me and my attorney," says Powell. "The record shows clearly that her disqualification order was issued on Thursday, July 10, yet it was not until late afternoon on Friday, July 11, that she made even a token attempt to contact my attorney by e-mail, when he was out of town."

Handel's office was much more diligent in informing polling places around the state that Powell had been removed from the ballot. Signs were prepared and posted informing voters that Powell had been declared ineligible.

Upon learning of Handel's decision, Powell sought and won an emergency stay a day before the election, allowing him to remain on the ballot. But Handel's office apparently did not communicate that decision very well to election officers, because those signs remained in some polling places on Election Day.

Despite that handicap, Powell managed to win a resounding 85 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary. If he stays on the ballot, he will face GOP stalwart and former state legislator Lauren McDonald in November.

Powell, a former U.S. Energy Department official with a strong background in energy issues, contends that Handel is trying to clear the ballot to bolster the chances of McDonald, who is seeking to reclaim the PSC seat that he lost to reform candidate Angela Speir in 2002.

Handel insists that criticisms of her office are based on misleading facts, but the case —- as laid out in court records —- is straightforward. Handel's decision contradicts the findings of the administrative law judge, and runs counter to a state Supreme Court ruling only two months earlier involving the residency of PSC Commissioner Bobby Baker.

A decade ago, the General Assembly changed the law and recast PSC districts based on geography. Under the change, Baker —- who was already on the PSC and living in metro Atlanta —- had to establish a new residency in the Athens area to keep his seat. He bought a place in the Athens area in 2003.

In 2004, an opponent challenged whether Baker's arrangement really constituted residency in Clarke County. A lower court found for Baker, and in May of this year, that ruling was affirmed by the Georgia Supreme Court. In that decision, the court specifically cited Baker's voter registration and record of voting in Clarke County as "particularly persuasive."

The facts of the Powell case are very similar to those of the Baker case, yet Handel ignored those facts and legal precedent and tried to remove him anyway. One of Handel's prime responsibilities as secretary of state is to protect the integrity of the election process, and her actions are deeply disturbing.

—- Maureen Downey, for the editorial board (mdowney@ajc.com)