Thomas at Blue Indiana says that John McCain has failed to obtain the necessary signatures to appear on the ballot in Indiana’s 4th Congressional District. Accordingly, he has filed a challenge.
For those of you who have been following the site over the last few days, you are probably well aware that I have been covering the gubernatorial signature battle, as both of our candidates sought to get their 500 signatures in each congressional district, and thus earn a place on the statewide ballot for the May primary. As part of that process, I’ve been requesting daily updates from the Indiana Election Division, which keeps a rolling tally of the number of signatures that each candidate has collected.
Now, I’m originally from the 4th District, so curiosity led me to check out who had made it (and by how much) in my old stomping ground. To my surprise, I noticed that John McCain — the presumptive front-runner for the GOP nomination — was just a little short in a few districts, including my precious 4th, despite the fact that Attorney General Steve Carter had already turned in their petitions. I made a few phone calls, and one by one I found out that the McCain camp had got the job done across the state.
Except in the 4th District.
In the 4th District, they are short.
By my latest count, they turned in 496 signatures for the 4th, and the latest IED report for this morning shows them with only 491.
So this afternoon, I filed a challenge with the Secretary of State’s office to keep John McCain off of the ballot. You can check it out here. (I’ll have a .pdf version up when I get back to Bloomington this evening.)
Let’s be clear here: This is one of the most Republican-friendly districts in one of the most Republican-friendly presidential states. John McCain has been endorsed by Governor Mitch Daniels, Attorney General Steve Carter, state GOP chair Murray Clark, and Secretary of State Todd Rokita.
And despite all of this high-level help, these guys managed to screw up one of the most basic steps that any candidate can take in the state.
Sounds like something with potential to blow up into a national story. 24 hours to go until the deadline, you bet they are working hard today.
Something to watch..