U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.

INDIANAPOLIS — U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., announced Friday that he will register to vote at his family’s farm in southern Marion County, a decision that ended a legal battle — but probably not the political battle — over whether he has the proper residency to cast a ballot in the state he’s represented for 35 years.

Lugar had been registered and voting using the address of an Indianapolis home he sold after his election to the Senate in 1976, a move that had been sanctioned at that time by Marion County election officials. Lugar lives at a home in Virginia.

Three state attorneys general have over the years issued opinions that the Indiana Constitution allowed Lugar to use that address while he was in Washington, D.C., representing Indiana.

But the Marion County Election Board recently overturned the previous ruling and said Lugar had to have a valid Indiana address to vote. Lugar appealed, and a Marion County judge was set to take up the issue Friday.

However, just before the hearing began, Lugar came to an agreement with Marion County voting officials that will allow him to register at a family farm that Lugar helps to manage but where he does not stay when he is back in Indiana. Lugar is president of the farm, which he co-owns with other family members.

In a statement, Lugar’s campaign said the senator’s political challengers have raised the residency issue only for “mischievous purposes.”

“There has never been a question that Sen. and Mrs. Lugar are, and have been, residents of Indiana and Marion County,” the campaign said. “Any further challenge will clearly be nothing more than continued pettiness on the part of a handful of disgruntled political opponents.”

Lugar’s GOP challenger, Richard Mourdock, has made Lugar’s residency a significant issue in the campaign, and other organizations — including the Indiana Democratic Party — have piled on. The issue has been raised in campaign commercials criticizing Lugar.

Then last week, Lugar agreed to pay back the federal Treasury for roughly $4,500 that his office improperly spent on hotels while the senator was traveling in Indiana at times that Congress was not in session.

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