Deery’s camp: ‘Egregious’ for Copenhaver to want to subpoena, challenge voters in recount
Recount petition targets 14 voters Copenhaver claims illegally pulled GOP ballots in Senate District 23. Review suggests Copenhaver accused several who don’t live and didn’t vote in that district.
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DEERY’S CAMP: ‘EGREGIOUS’ FOR COPENHAVER TO WANT TO SUBPOENA, CHALLENGE VOTERS IN RECOUNT
State Sen. Spencer Deery’s campaign pushed back Tuesday morning, calling an attempt by Republican challenger Paula Copenhaver request Monday to subpoena 14 voters to prove her claims that they illegally crossed over to pull GOP ballots in the May 5 Indiana Senate District 23 primary a case of voter intimidation.
The campaign also alleged that a review of the names of voters targeted in Copenhaver’s recount petition – since requested by Copenhaver’s attorney to be put under seal – showed that three did not reside or vote in Senate District 23, calling into question the rest of her attempts to get people to testify about who they voted for and why.
“Candidates have a right to request a recount of election results,” Deery’s campaign said in a release Tuesday morning.
“That is not a license to intimidate voters or to rewrite election laws after the results are in, or to ignore basic facts,” Deery’s campaign said. “The challenged voters’ records undermine the petition’s central theory. Included in the subpoena list are voters who were not even voters in this primary, who have a history of voting Republican, and who are being targeted over their social media posts. We don’t do that in America. We respect the results of elections and the voters who decide them.”
Copenhaver on Monday filed for a recount after losing the GOP primary, 6,337-6,334, to Deery.
At the heart of the petition was Copenhaver’s complaint about crossover voters.
Indiana election law allows voters to request either Republican or Democratic ballots at a polling site during a primary. With an open primary system, there is no requirement for formally registering with a party. State election law sets parameters that allow someone to pick a primary ballot if they voted for a majority of that party’s candidates in the last general election or intend to in the upcoming election. State law also provides a way to challenge someone at the polling place looking to pull a crossover ballot. Copenhaver’s filing contends there are ways to challenge a crossover voter after the polls close, too.
The filing outlines social media posts and comments in news reports – including in Based in Lafayette – by 14 voters who asked for a Republican ballot presumably to vote in a race that centered on Deery’s opposition to a White House-backed redistricting plan and a President Donald Trump endorsement of Copenhaver in hopes of taking the incumbent down.
Copenhaver’s filing argued that those voters gave up the secrecy of their ballots when they “boasted” about crossing over and asking for a Republican ballot.
Here are more details from Monday’s filing:
But a review of a filing from William Bock, with the Indianapolis-based firm Kroger Gardis & Regas representing Copenhaver in the recount, that lists the voters in question, three have Lafayette addresses and live in Senate District 22, which also featured a hotly contested Republican primary that state Sen. Ron Alting won over challenger Richard Bagsby.
