The Indiana Supreme Court on Thursday ordered election officials in the six counties of Indiana Senate District 23 to hold off on distributing ballots for the Nov. 3 general election until justices decide an appeal centering on six ballots from the May Republican primary that were rejected by the Indiana Recount Commission.
The order gave state Sen. Spencer Deery, a West Lafayette Republican, the emergency stay his attorneys had asked for, buying time in his attempt to reverse Recount Commission decisions that flipped the District 23 primary results from a three-vote victory into a three-vote defeat to primary challenger Paula Copenhaver.
The Supreme Court’s order, issued a week before justices are scheduled to take oral arguments in the appeal, will prevent election officials in Tippecanoe, Fountain, Warren, Montgomery, Parke and Vermillion counties from authorizing “the issuance, transmission or use of general election ballots for Indiana State Senate District 23 before a decision is issued in this appeal.”
The five justices concurred on the stay, according to the order issued Thursday morning.
Copenhaver’s attorneys had argued in briefs filed earlier this week that Deery’s request for a stay and then for an appeal to get his name on the November ballot were moot, because they came too late in the run-up to the general election.
Bill Bock, an Indianapolis-based attorney leading Copenhaver’s legal team, argued that the appeal falls outside “carefully calibrated” general election deadlines set by the General Assembly. That includes an deadline to certify candidates that passed Aug. 21. “The Court should resist any temptation to set aside the legislative deadline as doing so would open a Pandora’s box of late-breaking efforts to seek judicial intervention in Indiana elections regardless of statutory deadlines,” he argued in a brief filed Sept. 1.
Deery’s side has argued that the court has time to consider whether the three-member Recount Commission erred, overlooking voter intent when it voted 2-1 in an Aug. 10 hearing to reject ballots that were missing either the necessary signature or seal of the county clerk. They’ve argued that minus evidence of fraud, state law allows those six absentee ballot to be counted in situations of what amounts to clerical errors.
County election officials face a Sept. 19 deadline to start mailing absentee ballots. Early, in-person voting is scheduled to start Oct. 6.
Clerks in three of Indiana Senate District 23’s six counties told Based in Lafayette on Aug. 21 they were watching what happens with Deery’s appeal before taking the next steps with ballots. “Our ballots are all proofed and ready to go,” Fountain County Clerk Patty Smith said at the time. “We are waiting to see the Supreme Court’s final outcome next week before we sign off on them.”
The certified count, as it stands, in the May 5 primary is 6,332-6,329, Copenhaver over Deery.
The Senate District 23 ballot already includes David Sanders, a Democratic member of the West Lafayette City Council, and independent candidate Joshua Brant.
Here’s more on the arguments made so far in the appeal, ahead of oral arguments scheduled Sept. 10 before the Indiana Supreme Court.
Deery is scheduled to file one more reply in the appeal by the end of the work day today – Thursday, Sept. 3.
THIS AND THAT/OTHER READS …
State gas tax cuts first issued in April will continue until Oct. 6, after Gov. Mike Braun on Thursday extended the breaks at the pump for another month. The move, chalked up over the summer to disruptions caused by the U.S. war with Iran and global oil shipping lanes from the four-year-old Russian invasion of Ukraine, shave nearly 59 cents off the price of a gallon of gas at Indiana pumps. “My recommended budget will tap our reserves to keep state and local infrastructure projects fully funded,” Braun said in a release announcing the ongoing tax cut Thursday.
Indiana Capital Chronicle reporter Mackenzi Klemann had details on an Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles plan to launch “an optional mobile driver’s license for Hoosiers who wish to limit what information bank tellers, bartenders and others see when asked to verify their age or identity. The digital license would not replace a person’s physical driver’s license, but would instead grant Hoosiers the ability to verify their age or identity through a mobile application.” Read more about it here: “Indiana BMV plans mobile driver’s license.”
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