Recount results hearing set, as Deery’s camp blasts Copenhaver’s ‘fishing expedition to harass non-party voters’
Indiana Recount Commission sets July 28 hearing to get results and consider subpoenas for 14 voters and county election officials in a Senate District 23 Republican primary decided by three votes.
Support for this edition comes from Stuart & Branigin.
Scheduled downtime is over here at Based in Lafayette. Thanks for the grace for some time away. There will be plenty to catch up with in the coming days, starting with …
RECOUNT RESULTS HEARING SET, AS DEERY’S CAMP BLASTS COPENHAVER’S ‘FISHING EXPEDITION TO HARASS NON-PARTY VOTERS’
The director of the recount of state Sen. Spencer Deery’s three-vote victory over challenger Paula Copenhaver in the May Republican primary will present results, along with ballots disputed in the contested Indiana Senate District 23 race, to the Indiana Recount Commission on July 28 in Indianapolis.
A State Board of Accounts review of ballots across the sprawling, six-county Indiana Senate district ended after a two-week process in June.
But results have waited for a schedule of ongoing back-and-forth over claims by Copenhaver, a former Fountain County clerk backed in the state Senate race by President Donald Trump, that some votes should be canceled due to handling by election officials in Tippecanoe and Parke counties and for what she argues amounts to tampering in the primary by as many as 14 voters in the May 5 primary.
In an order issued last week, Evan Norris, a Zionsville-based attorney assigned to oversee the recount process, wrote that he plans on July 28 to deliver a report to the three-member Indiana Recount Commission of the precincts with ballots that the two side disputed during the State Board of Accounts reviews in June.
Norris’ order last week did not give a total of disputed ballots in a race that stood at 6,337-6,334 in Deery’s favor. But he hinted it was substantial, asking each side to help narrow the process, “given the number of disputed ballots in this matter.”
In Tippecanoe County’s case, Copenhaver’s backers disputed all ballots cast in six of the 32 Senate District 23 precincts in the county, each containing some of the 14 voters her campaign singled out and accused of tampering with the primary by illegally crossing over and pulling Republican ballots. Voters Copenhaver’s lawyers want to subpoena and put under oath about who they voted for included some in Warren and Fountain counties, too.
“The parties should use their best efforts to winnow down any disputed ballots that are no longer in dispute so that the parties and Commission can move forward in the most efficient way possible,” Norris wrote in last week’s order.
Norris said the Indiana Election Commission, during the July 28 hearing, would hear from Copenhaver and Deery’s attorneys about the requests to issue subpoenas tied to the recount.
Late last week, an attorney for Deery’s campaign took aim at Copenhaver’s attempt to make voters answer for what they did in the booth in the primary, arguing that her side lacks evidence that the accused voters did anything wrong by basing accusations on what her attorneys gathered from social media posts and reporting by the media.
“Just because (Copenhaver) doesn’t like the fact that she lost and read online comments that do not favor her, doesn’t mean she has any right to now compel these strangers to a deposition,” Samantha DeWester, an attorney for Deery’s campaign, wrote in a series of responses filed Friday.
