It didn’t take long for government watchdog Dorothy Brizill to strike. Only minutes after Mayor Vincent Gray announced three new nominees to serve on the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics this morning, Brizill threw one of the nominees’ qualifications into question by noting that he had not lived in the District for the amount of time required by law.

During his bi-weekly press conference, Gray announced his intention to appoint Robert Mallett, Stephen Danzansky and Devarieste Curry to serve on the board; currently, the three-person board has an empty seat, a retiring member and a member whose term has expired. Mallett, who would chair the board, was introduced as a former city administrator under Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly and a current General Counsel for the United Health Group, while Danzansky, a Republican, would serve as the sole minority-party representative, a seat that has remained empty for over two years.

As quickly as he was introduced, though, Mallett’s nomination was thrown into doubt when Brizill asked when he had returned to the District after living in New York for 10 years. (He had lived in the District for 17 years prior to that.) Mallett told Brizill that he had returned in May 2010 and purchased a home in July of the same year, which would make him ineligible for the post under a provision of a 2009 law that requires that nominees for the boards have lived in the District for at least three consecutive years prior to their appointment. (The irony certainly wasn’t lost on anyone — the residency requirement is contained within an election law, the very type of law that Mallett and the board are tasked to operate under and enforce.)

Before being able to answer any further questions, the nominees were ushered out of the room. If questions over Mallett’s residency derail his nomination, it will represent the second nomination in recent weeks that a mayoral appointee has been sunk by lax vetting. It was only two weeks ago that then-Deputy Chief of Staff Andi Pringle was forced to resign when Brizill discovered she had voted in the District in 2010, even though she was a Maryland resident at the time.

The potential disqualification put a damper on what was supposed to be an otherwise celebratory moment for the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, which has been threatened with a lack of quorum only months ahead of the April 2012 primary.

Additionally, it was something of a moment for local Republicans, who had nominated Danzansky for the position. (Gray’s director of boards and commissions, Ron Collins, said that he had considered four other non-Democratic candidates, including independents and Statehood Greens.) In a letter to Gray, the local Republican Party called Danzansky an “excellent nominee” and thanked Gray for nominating him.

And yes, the Republicans present at the press conference said that Danzansky was a long-time D.C. resident.