Residents looking at the Jefferson-Oldham County line and the disputed properties at the town hall Tuesday night.(Roberto Roldan / LPM )Susan Melheart has lived in the Willow Creek subdivision for 29 years. The development sits on the border between Jefferson County and Oldham County, but Melheart always believed she lived in Oldham and she had no reason to think otherwise.“We were told we bought in Oldham County, we were deeded in Oldham County and we pay taxes in Oldham County,” she said.Melheart’s two kids also attended Oldham County Schools.In late July, she and her husband received a letter from the state Board of Elections informing them that their voter registration changed to Jefferson County.At a town hall Tuesday night, hosted by Jefferson County Clerk David Yates, Melheart said she’s furious. She does not want to be a Louisville resident.“The schools are the biggest thing,” Melheart said. “And it’s safe. You can go to parks and you don’t have to worry you’re going to get shot or robbed.”Dozens attended the town hall at Green Castle Baptist Church, less than a mile from Willow Creek.The Jefferson County Clerk’s office held the meeting to allow residents to ask questions about the change and get more information about the next steps. Yates explained the changes happened after the Kentucky Board of Elections finalized a new statewide map of voting precincts and county boundaries. And under state law, local clerks are required to treat the map as the final word.However, Yates did have some welcome news for residents: Oldham County and Jefferson County officials had reached a deal to pause any changes in where people vote, at least temporarily.“The agreement is to pump the brakes and see if we can’t figure things out,” he said.Yates said he plans to file the agreement in Franklin County Circuit Court, where he has a lawsuit underway. A judge will have to approve it.Under the agreement, which was mediated by Republican state Rep. Jason Nemes — who represents part of Jefferson and Oldham Counties — the 211 affected Oldham County residents will be allowed to vote in Oldham this November. The deal will be good until March, which is when the state legislature’s session ends.Between now and then, Nemes said, the General Assembly will form a working group to figure out a long-term solution.“That working group will be working towards seeing if there's any statutes or any bills that need to be filed when we come back in session in January, or any administrative regulation changes that the Board of Elections or Property Value Administrators or anybody else needs to adopt,” Nemes said.He added that it’s possible the end result may be the same: that the Oldham County residents get transferred to Jefferson County.Nemes told LPM News after the meeting that the state legislature cannot change the existing county boundaries. But what lawmakers can do is make the process better.“This should have never happened like this,” Nemes said. “All the State Board of Elections did when they sent those letters was cause confusion.”The changes in voter registration, according to the officials at the meeting, did not take into account where residents currently vote or pay taxes. It was based solely on the legal description of the county lines that are filed with the state.Without a similar change in taxation and school districts, this raises multiple legal questions, including whether it violates the core American principle tying taxation to representation.As Jefferson County Clerk, Yates has been putting out multiple fires in the clerk’s office since he was appointed to the job last fall following the death of longtime Clerk Bobbie Holsclaw.In July, an LPM News investigation alleged that more than 1,800 voters in Jefferson County may have been coded into the wrong voting precincts. In some cases, residents weren’t able to vote for their local Metro Council member or state representative.Yates recently spoke to that issue, as well as the Oldham County residents, in front of a joint General Assembly committee in Frankfort. One legislator called it “a big, hot mess.”As part of the deal reached Tuesday, the state Board of Elections has agreed not to send out any more notices of changes in voter registration related to the new map. That applies to all of Kentucky’s 120 counties, Nemes said.The agreement by Jefferson and Oldham Counties to pause any changes does not apply to the other counties where this problem has occurred.For example, 24 voters previously in Jefferson County were recently moved to Shelby County. That includes Russ Mead, who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting.Mead, a retired UPS worker, said he’s lived in Jefferson County for 26 years and he wants it to stay that way.“I know nobody in Shelby County,” Mead said. “I lived overseas. I've been to Korea more times than I've been to Shelby County.”Mead asked numerous questions about how this would impact his taxes and the ambulance service in his area, questions officials at the meeting couldn’t answer.Adamant Oldham County resident Melheart said she appreciated state and local officials’ work to come to an agreement about the November election, but she recognized it's a temporary fix.“It doesn’t give me any less stress, because I still have it hanging over me,” she said.Melheart said she and her neighbors are currently discussing hiring a lawyer and taking Jefferson and Oldham Counties to court, where a judge can decide the issue. ...read more read less