Sorry, Democrats, the governor gets to pick the new secetary of state:
Former Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White was eligible to run for office, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled this morning.
The state’s highest court issued a unanimous decision this morning saying that even though White was registered to vote at his ex-wife’s house when he ran for office, he could still be a candidate.
In its decision, the Supreme Court, which has never overturned an election because of a challenge like this, said it was hesitant to go against the will of the voters.
I think that's the right call -- voters didn't just go for White; they went for him in a big way, by a more than 300,000-vote margin. Democrats did have a compelling argument, though -- if White committed fraud to get on the ballot, he shouldn't have been eligible to be on the ballot, so the office should go to the second-place finisher.
It's become increasingly clear lately that the state doesn't know how to handle residency complaints. Decisions are all over the place, with no apparent logic guiding any of them. I wonder how many Republican voters, by the way, both criticize Richard Lugar for his out-of-state residency but voted for White despite the complaints about him.
UPDATe: Wow.
The Election Board has voted 2-1 along party lines to find Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican, and his wife ineligible to vote in their former home precinct. The two Democrats found that the Lugars abandoned that residence and no longer reside there. However, according to Election Board attorneys, there may be an easy fix — the Lugars could submit new voter registrations that are based on a physical address in the county with which they currently have a connection. That could be a family member’s home or, possibly, the Lugar family farm. There is no house on that farm but it might satisfy the requirement.
The GOP board member, Patrick J. Dietrick, said after today’s vote that the other members “utterly failed to consider the circumstances of this alleged violation of election law.” Today Clerk Beth White’s motion said there was no evidence that the Lugars knowingly violated residency requirements in voting previously in their Wayne Township precinct.
Guess the Republican member isn't a tea partier.
