EVANSVILLE — Convicting Ken Colbert of the crime of falsely making a declaration of candidacy will mean proving he knew he was lying when he signed paperwork saying he complied with “any candidate requirements set by my party’s rules.”
But when Colbert, 61, comes before the Vanderburgh County Election Board on Feb. 24, the question will be simply this: Was he eligible under Republican Party rules to run for delegate to the state GOP convention or wasn’t he?
“And obviously it’s a very different standard in criminal proceedings with the burden of proof there being much higher,” said attorney Doug Briody, the election board’s longtime lawyer.
Colbert, a Vanderburgh County conservative activist, was banned by the 8th District GOP in June 2024 from running for office as a Republican until 2030. The party said he violated a GOP rule forbidding “gross misconduct affecting the party organization.” Colbert himself said he’d been notified of 17 complaints lodged against him for social media posts critical of prominent Republicans.
But then Colbert filed his candidacy this month to be a delegate to the Indiana Republican Party’s June 19-20 state convention in Fort Wayne. In the process, he signed a declaration of candidacy attesting that he complies with “any candidate requirements set by my party’s rules to be a candidate for this office.”
The question before the election board seems clear-cut to attorney Briody.
“This one’s clear, in that the Republican Party, like the Democrat Party, sets its own rules for who’s eligible to run for party offices, and they came down and posted a ban on Mr. Colbert until (December 31) 2029,” Briody said. “And so he is by definition not in good standing. That’s the issue that was challenged, where he declared under penalty of perjury that he was.”
The election board challenge to Colbert’s 2026 candidacy for state GOP convention delegate comes from Vanderburgh County Republican Chairman Khyle Moers, who says Colbert and two other activists very plainly — and publicly — were banned by the 8th District GOP. The decision to ban them came after a hearing attended by Colbert and attendant publicity plus paperwork sent to Colbert.
The criminal case emanated from a complaint filed by County Clerk Dottie Thomas — who also happens to be one of three members of the election board and Moers’ lieutenant as vice chair of the Vanderburgh County Republican Party.
It’s so obvious that Colbert wasn’t eligible to run for state convention delegate or any other elected office, Thomas said Monday, that there isn’t a plausible argument to be made otherwise.
“It’s not like any of us can even think about it – ‘Well, you know, he could’… I mean, really, he can’t,” Thomas said.
‘They despised me for empowering the people’
Not all of Colbert’s responses to the imbroglio over his decision to file his candidacy are directly on point.
Colbert has accused GOP leaders of persecuting him for recruiting dozens of new conservative GOP precinct committee members (PCs) in 2024 and for his past criticisms of prominent Republicans.
“They despised me for empowering the people over the 30-plus Country Club Republicans that were running the Republican Party,” he said in a lengthy text message to the Courier & Press.
Colbert’s stormy history in the GOP includes recruiting the PCs in an unsuccessful bid to remove then-party Chairman Mike Duckworth before his term expired in March 2025. After he was banned, he tried unsuccessfully to defeat Moers by getting behind another candidate in the contest to choose Duckworth’s successor.
Along the way, Republican County Clerk Carla Hayden resigned rather than preside over the 2024 presidential election in Vanderburgh County, citing what she called harassment from Colbert and others demanding confidential voting records and threatening to come to polling places.
Colbert last week criticized Moers for taking the name of his wife, Diana Moers, and for failing to recruit a candidate for Vanderburgh County sheriff this year. He railed against “the hypocrisy of the political parties” for the way they use Indiana’s “two primaries law,” which requires that a candidate’s two most recent votes in Indiana primary elections must have been cast in primaries held by the party he or she seeks to represent.
But Colbert may be told he’s getting too far afield if he tries to bring up any of those things in next week’s election board meeting, said attorney Joe Harrison Jr.
“I don’t think that’s germane to the topic,” said Harrison, a former election board president and local GOP chairman. “I’d probably say none of that stuff’s relevant to the issue at hand, but you can still obviously let him give an argument.”
Credibility could be an issue at hearing
Colbert insists that he had Moers’ clearance to run for office, despite the GOP’s ban. He tells of encountering Moers at a local memorial event for slain conservative icon Charlie Kirk in Sptember.
“(Moers) came up to a group of us at the Charlie Kirk event and spoke for over a half hour,” Colbert said by text. “He stated he wanted to amend the errors of the former Chairman (Duckworth). I asked him if he would oppose me if I filed for a position and he said he would not. There are witnesses.”He is now contradicting his statement. He is no different than the previous administration.”
Moers said he never waived the ban against Colbert and he never wanted to — and it’s not within his power to unilaterally waive it anyway. The 8th District GOP leadership team banned Colbert, he said — not the Vanderburgh County Republican Party.
“I’ve told him that,” Moers said.
The Courier & Press asked election board attorney Briody whether next week’s hearing could come down to simple credibility. Which individual does the board believe?
“I think we’ll have to let the evidence play out at the hearing,” he said.
‘He’s putting a target on his own back’
Briody has worked inside Vanderburgh County elections as a legal adviser or election board attorney since 1994. He said he hasn’t seen a party challenge a candidate’s filing for the reason Moers is challenging Colbert.
Moers said that’s because not many individuals get banned from seeking office under a party’s banner and then try to seek office anyway.
Ken Colbert isn’t just another well-intentioned individual who wants to get involved in politics, Moers said.
“I don’t really see it as an earnest bid to participate,” Moers said. “I see it as an opportunity to get attention for himself. I think the more Ken does stuff like this, the more he stays relevant and the more he has to bolster whatever claim he has that the party’s out to get him — when in fact, he’s intentionally subverting rules.”
Moers said Colbert has made no attempt to make amends with the local GOP or to bridge the gap between himself and the party. He has remained combative.
Moers cited Michael Daugherty, one of the other two activists banned by the 8th District in 2024. Daugherty has handled it gracefully, the party chair said.
Colbert could cease being confrontational if he wanted to remain involved in the GOP, Moers mused.
“He’s putting a target on his own back,” he said.
Courier & Press reporter Houston Harwood contributed to this story.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Local man who filed to run for office despite ban faces two forms of justice
Reporting by Thomas B. Langhorne, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
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