Ingram and Miller bounced from GOP primary ballot due to filing errors

David Penticuff, Muncie Star Press
·4 min read

MUNCIE, Ind. − Two sitting Muncie City Council members lost challenges to their candidacies Friday due to mistakes in filing paperwork to be on the Republican primary ballot this spring.

Troy Ingram, R-at-large, and Isaac Miller, R-District 4, lost their arguments before the Delaware County Election Board in votes of 2-1. Two other Republican candidates, Chuck Leonard and Brandy Webb, also had challenges to their candidacies for city council rejected by unanimous votes of the board.

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Election Board members voting were Pete Drumm, representing the Republican Party, Ashley Nichols, representing the Democratic Party, and local attorney Brandon Murphy, standing in for County Clerk Rick Spangler, who was out of town Friday.

Troy Ingram speaking after his 2019 election to Muncie City Council at-large, which helped give the GOP numerical control of Muncie City Council. Ingram was booted from the 2023 primary ballot Friday after failing to fully complete his filing paperwork.
Troy Ingram speaking after his 2019 election to Muncie City Council at-large, which helped give the GOP numerical control of Muncie City Council. Ingram was booted from the 2023 primary ballot Friday after failing to fully complete his filing paperwork.

Ingram, immediately after the hearing, said he would be consulting with an attorney to appeal the decision keeping him off the ballot. The paperwork turned in by Ingram included a declaration of candidacy, called a CAN-42 for the 2023 municipal elections, that had the wrong county named at the top of the first page. But members of the board took greater issue with the failure to fill out a series of seven questions on the form under the candidate certification section of the form.

Ingram signed the section but did not fill it out.

Murphy said the state has held in the past that the election board should deny a filing that does not have the candidate certification properly filled out.

Nichols said that previously the Delaware County Election Board had accepted forms that lacked a candidate's initials as requested. Based on that, she said, Ingram's form should be accepted.

Murphy and Drumm voted to uphold the challenge, which was made by Republican DeWayne Richmond.

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Ingram said every challenge brought before the board should have been disallowed.

During his presentation to the board, Ingram said that a check of 30 different candidate filings made for the Republican and Democratic ballots found errors in 29 of them. He also said Richmond had made a mistake in filling out the paperwork for the ballot challenge by checking a box saying he was a candidate for office.

"It was a minor clerical error," Richmond responded, which was met with guffaws from numerous Ingram supporters in the crowded room.

Ingram is vice president of the city council and has has come under criticism from other Republicans for often voting with Democrats, including voting to install Democrat Jeff Robinson as council president this year, when Robinson is running for mayor.

The challenge to Miller came from Democratic County Chairman Ana Quirk Hunter, who discovered Miller had failed to file a CAN-42 at all. Instead, he filed a CAN-2, which was a declaration of candidacy meant to be filed in 2022.

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Drumm noted that the information contained on a CAN-2 is the same as that found on a CAN-42, so it made no practical difference. County Clerk Rick Spandler also left word that his office failed to catch the error and should have.

Nichols asked Miller if the clerk's office had given him the CAN-2 to fill out, and he said no. She also noted that the form this year was intended specifically for a municipal election, while the CAN-2 was not.

Nichols and Murphy voted to uphold the challenge. Drumm supported Miller, who declined comment after the vote. Miller had been picked to fill the District 4 council seat in December by a Republican caucus after former council member Brad Polk was chosen by another GOP caucus to become county treasurer as of Jan. 1.

Isaac Miller lays his hand on a Bible held by his wife, Sara, and takes his oath of office in late December. Miller will represent District 4 for the remainder of 2023, filling out the term of Brad Polk, who is now Delaware County Treasurer. He was scratched from the spring GOP primary ballot Friday by the Delaware County Election Board due to a paperwork filing error.

The issues involving Webb, a candidate in District 4, and Leonard, a candidate in District 3, revolved around the filling out of notary information attesting to the filing of the documents. Challenges to the candidates came from information not being properly filled out and notarized. But Don McClellan, attorney for the election board, said the state does not require a notary to witness the filing. That can be done by a deputy clerk in the clerk's office, which it was in both cases for Webb and Leonard.

After the meeting, Drumm said that candidates need to take great care to properly fill out the election filing paperwork. The forms can be confusing.

"Don't trust a clerk," with handling the paperwork for you, he said. "Don't trust anybody but yourself."

This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Ingram and Miller bounced from GOP ballot due to paperwork errors