Second campaign finance complaint filed against Tom Flynn, candidate for Marshall County Council

A second campaign finance complaint in as many weeks has been filed against a Marshall County Council District Two candidate, this time targeting Republican Tom Flynn.

The complaint was filed May 4th by Bill Woodward and taken up by the Marshall County Election Board at Friday's meeting — the same gathering at which a separate complaint against fellow Republican candidate Deb Johnson was withdrawn.

In his two-page complaint, Woodward states that he carefully inspected Flynn's Campaign Finance Report and Statement of Organization and found what he described as numerous errors and at least one significant red flag.

"I have carefully inspected Tom Flynn's Campaign Finance Report and Statement of Organization and have found numerous errors on his CFA-4 report and a red flag that suggests Mr. Flynn may have co-mingled personal funds with campaign funds," Woodward wrote, going on to detail 13 specific errors or omissions.

Woodward acknowledged that the majority of the mistakes were minor, but argued that the simplicity of Flynn's report made the errors more difficult to overlook.

"To be fair, most of the 13 mistakes are minor, but Mr. Flynn only submitted a 3-page report listing 4 contributions and 3 expenditures," Woodward wrote. "Deb Johnson has a more extensive and complicated report totaling 14 pages that had 34 contributions and 15 expenditures, plus debt entries. Had Mr. Flynn received as many contributions and made the number of expenditures as Mrs. Johnson, the number of errors on this report would have likely skyrocketed."

Woodward also invoked the handling of the Johnson complaint as justification for his own, arguing that equal scrutiny must be applied to both candidates.

"These questions raise credible concerns, and the only way to answer them is for the Election Board to conduct a public hearing," he wrote. "It would only be fair since Terry Borggren's questions concerning Deb Johnson's campaign finance report were granted immediate credibility by the Election Board, who moved expeditiously to schedule a public hearing, and so should mine."

He concluded pointedly: "If the same level of scrutiny is not applied to Mr. Flynn, then the process is flawed and unjust."

Flynn was present at Friday's meeting when the Election Board reviewed and formally notified him of the complaint. He came prepared, presenting an addendum to his initial campaign finance report, which was filed in the County Clerk's Office during the meeting.

The Marshall County Election Board has set a potential hearing date for Monday, May 18th at 2 p.m., contingent upon their review of the newly submitted material. If the board determines a hearing is warranted after reviewing Flynn's addendum, the hearing will proceed as scheduled.