COVINGTON, IN — GOP incumbent Spencer Deery’s lead for the 23rd District state senate seat returns to just three votes over challenger Paula Copenhaver.
The Fountain County Election Board met Monday morning to sort through seven provisional ballots and a single mail-in ballot without a signature when it was returned.
Fountain County Clerk Patty Smith told the board the ballots’ discrepancies had been researched after the May 5 primary election.
The signature for the mail-in ballot had been verified, leaving just the seven provisional ballots to sort out at Monday’s meeting before certifying the county’s election results.
The seven ballots were provisional because the voters’ names were not on the poll list. Two of those names should have been on the poll books, Smith said, and the board agreed.
“We don’t know why the person’s (driver’s) license did not pull up their voter registration, but we showed it active in our voter registration system,” Smith said before allowing the board to inspect it.
The person also had voted in the 2024 election, Smith said.
The second provisional ballot the board approved was from a woman who registered in to vote in the primary election of 2023 when she was 17, which is legal as long as the voter will be 18 by the time of the General Election.
Her registration should have been on the books, but for some reason, there was an error, Smith said. The board agreed to count that ballot.
The other five provisional ballots were from people who were not registered to vote, and the board rejected their ballots.
Two people’s voter registrations were canceled because they had not voted in at least eight years.
One of the provisional ballots was from a person who registered at the license branch on April 28, which is after the date to register for the primary election. This person will be eligible to vote in November.
One voter cast a ballot, even though he/she had not voted since 1992. That ballot was rejected because the person’s registration was canceled in 2012. Another’s was rejected because he/she was removed in 2021.
The election board watched as the three approved ballots were tallied, giving two votes to Copenhaver and one to Deery. Then the board certified the county’s elections.
The validity of provisional ballots in Tippecanoe and Montgomery counties has not yet been determined, and the election could hinge on those.
Three votes separated Deery and Copenhaver on election night. The tally favored Deery, but both candidates proclaimed victory.
Deery faced primary challenger Copenhaver after he voted in December to reject President Donald Trump’s administration’s plan to redistrict Indiana’s congressional districts to favor Republicans. The Indiana House approved the redistricting, but it failed in the state senate.
Trump called for challenges to GOP state senators who voted against the redistricting, including Deery.
Reach Ron Wilkins at rwilkins@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @RonWilkins2.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Deery’s lead shrinks by 1 after Fountain County tallies problem ballots
Reporting by Ron Wilkins, Lafayette Journal & Courier / Lafayette Journal & Courier
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