It seems there is more than one registered committee active in the effort to recall Elmwood supervisor Deri Smith. Trouble is, they all have the same organizers and the same street address. Voters may wonder whether there really is more than one group behind the effort, and if not, why they have gone to the trouble to make it appear that there is.

Mailings to township residents have been sent out now over the names of three different committees. One mailing, sent in early April, bore the name of Elmwood Citizens for Honest Government (ECHO). A subsequent mailing changed the name to Elmwood Citizens for Honest Officials. And a third mailing, sent last week, was from a group calling itself the Elmwood Township Alliance. All had different ID numbers, as required by law.

In every case the committees list the same street address on Bayview Court in Elmwood with the same organizer’s last name. Which raises the question: why the different committee names? Let’s assume that the Elmwood Citizens for Honest Government (ECHO) became the Elmwood Citizens for Honest Officials (ECHO) because it makes a better acronym. Where does Elmwood Township Alliance come from?

Some facts: Campaign finance laws specify that committees that spend less than $1000 do not need to file finance statements, nor to reveal the name of their donors. Campaigns that spend over $1000, on the other hand, must reveal all such information. In past Elmwood elections, the John Stanek / Noel Flohe party that is behind the recall received its biggest contributions by far from various Elmwood developers and developer wannabes. The current campaign certainly is an expensive one, with multiple, elaborate mailings and campaign signs. Could it be that this campaign is being financed again by contributions from developers and others who hope to benefit from a return to power by the Elmwood old guard of Flohe and Stanek? And that they, or the people running the campaign, would prefer to keep that information hidden?

Is it illegal to register multiple committees organized by the same people for the same ballot question? The Post will be researching this question. If it’s not, it should be, as it seems clearly intended to frustrate and circumvent the law’s intention to make clear the financing of election campaigns and keep the benefactors’ identities hidden from the voters.

There are a couple of things the people running the campaign against Deri Smith can do to lay to rest the suspicions that their campaign has been bought and paid for by developers. First: they can reveal a complete list of their contributors, with the amounts they donated. The Committee to Support Deri Smith has said they will do that. And second, they can explain the reasons behind this very unusual arrangement.

These “groups” need to come clean before the election takes place. Voters deserve to know who is bankrolling the campaign to recall Deri Smith.