Recount starts with Copenhaver's ballot disputes in Indiana Senate District 23
Paula Copenhaver’s team targets precincts where voters they claim illegally crossed over in the state Senate race live. Recount results in state Sen. Spencer Deery’s 3-vote victory could take weeks.
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RECOUNT STARTS WITH COPENHAVER’S BALLOT DISPUTES IN INDIANA SENATE DISTRICT 23
Paula Copenhaver’s legal team set their strategy Tuesday in the first of six counties targeted for an Indiana Senate District 23 recount expected to last until at least June 25 – with results not determined until a week or more after that in what, for now, stands as a three-vote victory for state Sen. Spencer Deery in the May 5 Republican primary.
Over the course of seven hours in downtown Lafayette, Copenhaver’s backers disputed all ballots cast in six of the 32 Tippecanoe County precincts in the sprawling state Senate district, 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 to upend her Trump-backed campaign.
Evan Norris, a Zionsville attorney appointed recount director in Senate District 23 and two other races across the state, did not release the final, precinct-by-precinct tallies of Tuesday’s work, before dozens of State Board of Accounts headed for Newport in Vermillion County for the second day of the recount Wednesday.
But Ted Nolting, an attorney for Copenhaver, and Samantha DeWester, representing Deery in the recount, said tallies remained the same in the race as those that the Tippecanoe County Election Board certified May 15.
Deery won the race by a count of 6,337-6,334.
Copenhaver’s primary run featured the former Fountain County clerk as Trump’s pick to go after Deery, a West Lafayette Republican, for his opposition of mid-decade redistricting that the president and White House allies wanted to see happen in hopes of beefing up Republican seats in the U.S. House. The race drew unprecedented campaign spending, including dark money estimates of more than $2 million aimed at Deery and $3 million overall. (By comparison, Deery’s contested primary in 2022 just topped six figures.)
Deery was one of two Republican state senators who survived being targeted by Trump-backed candidates. Five others lost in the May 5 primary.
Deery and Copenhaver did not attend Tuesday’s recount.
Beyond a straight rerun of ballots in the Senate District 23 primary, Copenhaver is challenging the election, saying voters violated a little-used state law when they pulled ballots.
Indiana allows someone to pick a party’s primary ballot when they arrive at the polls. State law, though, stipulates that that they are supposed to pick a ballot that matches a majority of that party’s candidates in the last general election or intend to back that party’s candidates in the upcoming election. That state law, rarely if ever employed, provides a way to challenge someone at the polling place looking to pull a crossover ballot, requiring the challenger, poll workers and the voter to sign affidavits before the voter is given a provisional ballot.
Copenhaver’s attorneys contend there are ways to challenge a crossover voter after the polls close, too, arguing that “as with most constitutional rights, however, ballot secrecy is not absolute.” In this case, they argued that voters singled out in Copenhaver’s challenge were left-leaning, non-Republicans who made comments on social media or in a post-election edition of Based in Lafayette that “are indicative of a purposeful effort by one or more individuals to personally cast and/or to encourage other to cast invalid votes for candidate Deery.”
Copenhaver’s team has asked the Indiana Recount Commission to subpoena 11 of the 14 voters initially called out and have them testify under oath about who they voted for. (Her attorneys have backed off somewhat after grabbing names of three people who commented on social media accounts despite that they live and apparently voted in a neighboring state Senate district.)
DeWester repeated Tuesday that the demand was outrageous.
No decision on the disputed ballots were made Tuesday. Norris said the same would go for any disputes filed when the recount process goes to Vermillion County on Wednesday; Parke County on Thursday; Mongomery County on June 22; Warren County on June 23; and Fountain County on June 25 and 26.
Norris said at the end of that schedule, he would assemble a report of the recount results, along with any disputes, and present that to the three-member Indiana Recount Commission. That hearing date hasn’t been set. Norris said it likely would come after two other recounts are finished by July 1, too.
“All those disputed ballots will be sent to the Recount Commission, and it will be up to the parties that disputed it to bring up their arguments as to why that ballot should or shouldn’t count,” Norris said Tuesday.
Timelines laid out by Norris in an order issued a week ago gave both sides until June 26 to file responses or objection to Copenhaver’s demand to make voters testify. He said Tuesday that it would be up to the Recount Commission to make the call about whether to issue subpoenas.
Tuesday’s recount was slow going early, as staff from the State Board of Accounts found its footing.
“Now that the team has gotten this one under its belt, I think the process will go smoother,” Norris said.
Indiana State Police troopers were stationed in the Tippecanoe County Office Building to guard the process and the ballot materials.
Secretary of State Diego Morales, who is one of three Indiana Recount Commission members, briefly stopped in downtown Lafayette to observe the process and then to speak to State Board of Accounts staffers doing the recount during a closed-door session over carryout lunches.
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'State law, though, stipulates that that they are supposed to pick a ballot that matches a majority of that party’s candidates in the last general election or intend to back that party’s candidates in the upcoming election.' I don't understand how that stipulation is supposed to work, unless Indiana is saying that peoples' votes aren't secret, so poll workers would know how they voted or intend to vote?! How can they be challenged about which ballot they choose, if this isn't a closed primary where they have to sign up as a Democrat or Republican ahead of time?
In the United States we vote via a secret ballot in a variety of ways according to local districts in order to shield others from observing one's vote.
By being called to testify under oath to state how one voted is an absurd stretch turning the concept of a secret ballot on its head.