Political candidates from around Indiana have been redoing paperwork for this spring’s primary ballot as confusion surrounds whether the secretary of state’s office properly processed those forms.
The turmoil stems from questions over whether staffers to Republican Secretary of State Diego Morales were correctly certified to accept sworn statements from candidates that they meet the legal requirements for the office they are seeking.
Morales maintains that his office followed state law, but that hasn’t stopped many Republican and Democratic candidates from refiling the two-page document this week at the Indiana Election Division office ahead of Friday’s deadline.
Republican state Rep. Bob Heaton of Terre Haute was in the Election Division office Wednesday morning filling out a new form to seek his ninth term in the Legislature.
Heaton said the House Republican campaign staff had directed him and other legislators to take that step in order to assure their place on the May primary ballot.
“We were told we probably ought to go and amend it,” Heaton told the Indiana Capital Chronicle. “So here I am.”
Democrat David Greene Sr., who’s running for an Indianapolis-area state Senate seat, said he was warned by Hamilton County Democratic leaders about the potential problem.
“I didn’t want to find out later that you’re going to be ineligible or have to spend time taking away from the campaign, defending what you did when you followed the process,” Greene said as he was refiling on Wednesday.
The scrambling picked up after the possible trouble was first reported Tuesday morning by political commentator Abdul-Hakim Shabazz on his Indy Politics website.
Confusion over authorization documentation
At question is whether the candidacy forms submitted at the secretary of state’s office — located in the Statehouse — could be challenged by a political opponent as having not been processed correctly.
For races on this year’s primary ballot, state law requires Republican and Democratic candidates for the U.S. House, Indiana Senate, Indiana House, county judge and county prosecutor positions to submit their filings to state officials.
That can be done at the secretary of state’s office or the Election Division office, which is in an office building on the downtown Indianapolis state government campus.
State law requires the candidacy forms to be certified by a notary public or other officials, including all employees of the Election Division office.
Morales is also authorized to certify the forms by virtue of his elected office. Documents provided by his office on Tuesday show that he appointed as “special deputy” nine staffers — including his legislative director and press secretary — with authority to authenticate candidacy forms during the filing period that began Jan. 7 and ends at noon Friday.
Those documents, however, include no official time stamp showing when they were filed by the office.
The special deputy documents were delivered Tuesday to the Election Division office, where they were time stamped at 2:03 p.m. Election Division staffers said the last previous certificates it had on file were from Secretary of State Holli Sullivan, whom Morales replaced in January 2023.
Morales press secretary Lindsey Eaton did not immediately reply Wednesday to questions about the filing of the special deputy forms and a request to interview Morales.
Morales’ office released a statement saying “the candidate filing process has, and is, being administered according to statutory requirements.”
“Candidates should be assured that the Indiana Secretary of State’s Office takes every precaution necessary to guarantee candidate filing paperwork is completed according to Indiana law,” Morales said in the statement. “As Indiana’s chief election officer, I will continue serving Hoosiers and not allow misleading reports to discredit confidence in our state’s election process.”
The Election Division was not tracking how many candidates were refiling at its office this week, with potentially hundreds affected.
Candidates warned to refile forms
Megan Ruddie, executive director of the Indiana House Democratic campaign arm, said she was advising all candidates she’s working with to resubmit their forms if they originally did so at the secretary of state’s office.
Ruddie said she was concerned that Morales’ office had “screwed this up before” by not properly filing its authorization paperwork.
“I don’t trust them to be right now,” she said.
Knox County Clerk David Shelton, who is challenging Morales this year for the Republican secretary of state nomination, said he and other clerks were warning judge and prosecutor candidates about the issue.
“We are doing what we can to get the word out there,” Shelton said. “Out of an abundance of caution, we are taking steps to make sure everybody’s filings are correct and accurate, and to be doubly safe to avoid a potential candidate challenge.”
Even if the secretary of state’s office did mishandle the paperwork, candidates would not automatically be ineligible.
A registered voter would need to file a challenge to the candidate and then the State Election Commission — made up of two Republicans and two Democrats — would have to decide by a majority vote to remove the candidate.
The commission’s decisions can be appealed in court, but face a tight timeline before county clerks must complete ballot preparation for the start of early voting on April 7.
Republican Tracey Powell traveled Wednesday from Tipton to the Election Division office and repeated the candidacy form he submitted to the secretary of state’s office during the opening day of filings on Jan. 7.
Powell, a Tipton County commissioner who is challenging Republican Sen. Jim Buck of Kokomo, said his campaign team told him to refile.
“Not sure what happened,” Powell said. “Just making sure we’re covered.”
Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com.
