The official Facebook page for the Bloomington mayor’s office briefly shared a post promoting Mayor John Hamilton’s re-election.
The post may violate state election laws that prohibit public employees from advocating the election of a candidate using a government platform. The Mayor’s office says it was posted accidentally.
The post originated on Hamilton’s campaign page and showed a photo of a campaign yard sign. The Mayor’s office Facebook account shared that post and added the words "requested mine today!"
Mary Catherine Carmichael is the Director of Public Engagement for the city, but previously served as the Director of Communications.
Carmichael says she meant to share the message to her personal Facebook page and didn’t realize she posted it to the Mayor’s page instead.
The post was up for about five hours before being deleted.
Carmichael posted a statement to her personal account on Wednesday explaining the situation.
State law says a public employee commits a misdemeanor if they "knowingly or intentionally" use public property, including "messaging systems," to advocate for a candidate.
Carmichael says she doesn’t believe the law was broken.
"I certainly didn’t do it on purpose and I do know better and would not have done that on purpose," Carmichael says. "It was really just human error."
Carmichael says the Mayor's Office has a policy not to delete posts from official Facebook pages, but rather to correct misinformation but keep the error publicly available. She says they made an exception in this case because the post potentially violated state law.
Hamilton is serving his first term as mayor. He faces Monroe County Commissioner Amanda Barge in the primary election in May.
