Indiana Democrats are attempting to press their advantage with Charlie White’s recently exposed challenges with election law. A candidate for any other position probably wouldn’t have too many problems with this, but the fact is that he is campaigning to be the state’s chief election officer. So, you have to get the election law stuff right, particularly when your predecessor has made such a fuss about the perils of election fraud.
Mary Beth Schneider lays out the story to date, and points out that White’s explanation is a little thin for why he voted in the wrong district and kept his town council position despite having moved from the district. Thomas Cook describes the White campaign’s explanation as a glorified “whoops.” Bil Browning gives the story a little national push in the pages of the Huffington Post.
Dan Parker, state Democratic party chairman, is asking Secretary of State (and IN-04 candidate) Todd Rokita to back up his office’s talk about voter fraud and investigate White. Hamilton County Democrat and attorney, Greg Purvis, who I believe broke this story, has asked a special prosecutor be appointed and that a grand jury investigate whether criminal charges are appropriate.
Hoosier Access, one of the more establishment conservative Indiana blog, goes with the “you get to vote one last time in your old district” and “it’s no big deal” defense to White’s having voted where he wasn’t supposed to. (Before trying to change the subject to Vop Osili’s apparent non-response to an abortion advocacy group’s questionnaire.)
This notion that ignorance of election law is no big deal for a Secretary of State candidate (and what about abortion, huh!) is basically just a tap dance, hoping this issue disappears. But, it adds to the evidence that all the huffing-and-puffing about voter fraud as the compelling reason for a draconian voter ID law was mostly just a pretext for shaving a few votes off the opposition.
White’s campaign hasn’t, to my knowledge, cited the code section they think gives him his “one last vote” in his former precinct, but the most applicable chapter is IC 3-10-11. Among other things, the change in residence has to have happened within the past 30 days, the person has to have requested a transfer of the person’s registration, and the person has to have executed an affidavit with the person’s name, date of birth, current address, previous address, and statement that he is qualified to register in his former precinct. The detail required by this statute simply makes it impossible to reconcile the “one last vote” rationale with the “I forgot” rationale. In any event, he should go back to the “I forgot” defense since he moved more than 30 days prior to voting in his old precinct.
Then there is the matter of staying on the Fisher’s Town Board after he was no longer qualified to serve. And, apparently, collecting a salary for doing so. It’s late, and I don’t have any code cites handy at the moment, so I’ll save that for a future drip as this saga continues to unfold.
I say we get Steve Goldsmythe to arbitrate.
[Okay, I know I’ve got to explain the joke, more’s the pity: when he was mayor of Indianapolis it came to light that Goldsmith was–feloniously–registered to vote under an assumed name (“Goldsmythe”) and at a fictitious address. (You couldn’t drive down his real street in those days without being stopped by the cops permanently stationed there. I tried to use it to turn around one night and wound up with a light shining in my face.) Cornered, he explained that it was one of many precautions he was forced to take for having put away so many bad guys while prosecutor. At the time Rudy Giuliani–who did put away the sort of bad guy who might order a hit on a former prosecutor–was living at Gracie Mansion. When he wasn’t bunking over at Bernie Kerik’s, anyway.
Oh, surprise ending: nothing happened, except Goldsmythe probably was forced to find another nom d’électeur.]
“Nom d’electeur!”
White’s new excuse seems to be he was entitled to vote one last time in his old precinct. But excuse me, it WASN’T his old precinct. Until 4 days before he closed on his new condo, he lived in an apartment in Delaware 14 precinct. At that time, instead of changing his registration to his new address in Fall Creek Township, he changed it to his ex-wife’s house in Delaware 12, a completely different precinct. And then he “forgot” that he didn’t live there when he went to vote?
If anyone believes that, I have a real deal for you on some swampland in Florida.
This is not about Joe Blow who forgot to re-register when he moved, and yes, that happens, and THEY GET TURNED AWAY, at least if they admit they moved. Charlie knows better, or should. This is more about the culture of arrogance that some in one-party counties have, because they cannot be held to account politically. Maybe this time it will be different.
Stay tuned, the investigation continues.
I speak so-called ‘fluent French’ yet can’t put the term ‘nom d’electeur’ into any contextual meaning reading back how it was used above.Truly humbling at my age. But I guess the lesson is that speaking French and understanding concepts in law are two different cognitive levels. We all need a liberal education to help us put concepts into changing contexts.It’s really not the French nor the Law.
I can’t speak at all for whether it makes any sense as French, but I presume Doghouse meant the term in the sense of “nom de plume” or “nom de guerre” – a pseudonym one uses as an author or as a warrior in those cases.
nom d’électeur = name of voter
I like what Lou said, correct grammar or not. A pseudonym one uses for voting!!!
This harks back to the very recent post on the IN State Treasurer. I commented then and I say now, who are these unknown and unknown-if-they’re-qualified people that run for and get elected to statewide positions? Only party insiders care who gets in until too late, yet they have the power and resources to spend money and push for pet initiatives, when they should be above politics. But the electorate neither know nor care. If this man, whom I have never heard of before, becomes SOS and “in charge” of elections, well, it will be another embarrassing blotch on the face of Indiana, and Indiana will deserve to be the butt of late-night TV jokes, at the very least.
This also recalls a situation in my life. My grandmother (an election judge)n challenged me (her favorite grandson) when I attempted to vote in the precinct in the small town where I was still registered. I moved before the election but did not reregister. I was purged and could not vote. Now that is ethics, turning blood kin away!
Ah, well, Lou, in addition to the play on noms guerre et plume, there is, as always, an intended Bablefishesque self-leg-pull over my own execrable French. Perhaps best illustrated by the fact that one of my favorite gags in Eric Idle’s wonderful The Rutles is the note that among the other groups managed by Leggy Mountbatten (the Brian Epstein character) was “the French Beach Boys, Les Garçons de la Plage.” I’m always the only one who laughs.
‘Nom de plume’ and ‘Nom de guerre’ and ‘Nom d’electeur’ ,and then add to that ‘Les garcons de la plage’ and we have seeds for an intellectual type humor,parody of English sprinkled with French borrowings.
I probably have forgotten that French can be funny just because it’s French.
You really can’t cuss convincingly in French because so many of the expressions are multi-syllabic. The best way to say ‘It’s crap!’ in French is ‘C’est de la deguellasse!’. Who would pay attention? Already it’s a joke for an English speaker..
Compare that to a group of special needs children who were chaperoned by their German chaperones at a Church concert I attended in Keil, Germany. A couple, teenagers,girl and boy, wanted to go sit by themselves across the aisles and a chaperon yelled at them : Komm Hierher! Schnell! Sitzen sie hier neben! as she pointed sternly to the seats just in front of where I was sitting. No mistaking orders in German! This a true story. Language is also culture.
.
The medium is the message!
Charlie White’s new wife is H-O-T. And he’s a dork.
That’s all you need to know about the dude.
Buzzcut,
That does say alot about his prospects in business, law and politics. The man has bright prospects and his wife has noticed.
The special prosecutor is being appointed. Good post at Advance Indiana.
As someone who represents the 2nd District on the Fort Wayne City council, the whole “I wasn’t thinking about where the district boundaries were” aspect of this situation is just unfathomable to me. When I think of local geography, ALL I think about is where my district boundaries are, and there is no way that I could move out of my district without being fully aware of that fact. It sounds to me like White’s council service wasn’t a high priority for him.
Todd, I met White, and his new hotwife, and he was trotting around his kids (2 from his first marriage, and 2 from I believe hers).
It made me uncomfortable. Obviously, I don’t know jack squat about their personal life and how they came to be together, but my prejudice is such that it just doesn’t sit right with me. Sorry, call me old fashioned, call me sexist, whatever. Guilty.
My impression is that he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
IC 3-14-2-11 makes it a Class D felony to “knowingly vote” in a precinct except the one in which the person resides. White appears be going with the “honest mistake” part to avoid the “knowing element in the criminal statute that makes it a felony to vote in a precinct other than the one you reside in. This is the same trick Republican candidate Susan Ellspermann used to avoid prosecution this year when she voted in an unauthorized manner in the 2008 primary and then perjured herself on her declaration form this year to run for HD 74. She’s on the ballot by the skin of her teeth, and we’re awaiting an opinion from the court of appeals as to whether she’s qualified to run.
At least a special prosecutor is being appointed to investigate Charlie White’s situation.
Hopefully, the prosecutor will judge what Charlie White “knew” or didn’t know based upon the facts that Mr. White drew is own legislative boundaries, served in the district for almost a decade, and claims to be an expert on elections, serving on a board overseeing election administration.
We might buy the “I didn’t know” argument from a layperson, but you, Mr. White, are no layperson when it comes to elections. Sorry Charlie…