Secretary of State Todd Rokita loves television advertisements. Well, more accurately, he loves television advertisements in which he is featured prominently.
Unfortunately for our buddy Todd, the Republican-dominated Senate wasn't feeling particularly charitable when Rokita's minions made the walk over to their chamber and asked that the General Assembly make it even easier for elected officials to earn some free ad time on the public dime.
The Senate voted 50-0 in a highly unusual roll call vote to reject a bid by Rokita's office to rewrite a banking bill to remove language that bars a state officeholder from using the fund to buy advertising that identifies the official.
Some lawmakers felt Rokita is using the fund he controls to build name recognition as he pursues another elective office. He's seeking the Republican nomination in the 4th District congressional race against 12 other candidates - including state Sens. Brandt Hershman of Lafayette and Mike Young of Indianapolis.
Hershman and Young joined the parade of senators from both parties to speak against the amendment that author Sen. Richard Bray, R-Martinsville, said was sought by a lobbyist for Rokita's office.
"We should not use the public's dime to let people advertise on TV, whether running for public office or not," Young said.
Hershman said Rokita was seeking a pass at a time when the state, to balance its budget, is making "painful cuts" to necessary programs.
You know it's a strange day when I find myself echoing the sentiments of Brandt Hershman, but there it is.
Last week, I speculated at the Capitol Watchblog that we'd see uncharacteristic enthusiasm from Lt. Governor Becky Skillman's supporters when it came to rumors that Secretary of State Todd Rokita could run for the now-open congressional seat in the Fightin' Fourth District. Why?
Quite plainly, they want to get rid of the guy any way they can.
It's no secret that both Rokita and Skillman have entertained delusions of gubernatorial grandeur as of late, and the prospect of a protracted (and costly) political battle has loomed on the horizon for a while now. With Rep. Steve Buyer's announcement that he will not be seeking reelection, a door was opened by which the Indiana Republican Party establishment could shove Rokita out to pasture for the foreseeable future.
Abdul notes this morning that the rumor mill is pointing pretty conclusively to a Rokita announcement in the coming days. But don't hand this seat to Rokita just yet -- his state money won't be of much use in a federal election, and he'll have a new primary contest to worry about with both State. Sen. Brent Hershman and former State Rep. Matt Whetstone readying a hat-toss in recent days.
For loyal Democrats such as myself, I can't think of anything more entertaining than watching those three tear one another apart.
For the Lite Guv, the result of all this jostling could be presumptive front-runner status as 2012 speculation continues. With Rep. Mike Pence unabashedly discussing presidential aspirations, Indiana Republicans appear willing to push Skillman front and center. For a politico who has never seemed capable of getting anyone's blood pumping -- or getting their wallets to open, for that matter -- Skillman still has a long way to go to prove her viability as a legitimate statewide challenger.
As anyone who has registered voters knows -- especially if you've registered on a college campus -- the number one question from people in a rush is quite simple: Can't I just register online?
The answer has always been in the negative here in the Hoosier Heartland, but Deanna Martin of the AP reports that a bill recently passed out of the Indiana Senate would push Indiana's voter outreach reluctantly into the 21st century.
Currently Indiana allows people to download voter registration applications online, but they must print and mail the forms.
Washington and Arizona, meanwhile, allow online voter registration. Voters there can go to a Web site, enter personal and driver's license information and then register to vote or change their voter registration information.
Indiana's proposed system would work in a similar way, using Bureau of Motor Vehicles information to verify that a person is eligible to vote. The BMV, secretary of state's office and county voter registration office would be involved in processing applications.
Secretary of State Todd Rokita, the state's top elections officer, said using technology such as online registration can drive down costs without compromising the integrity of elections.
What remains to be discussed is why if Rokita thinks this is such a great idea, he didn't pursue it, I don't know, prior to the 2008 election season? I'm sure it couldn't have anything to do with the fact that new voters overwhelmingly leaned Democratic last year. No, not from an elected official with such a sterling record when it comes to voter suppression.
We have no way to confirm, but based upon Secretary of State Todd Rokita's previous track record, there is probably reason to believe he wrote in his own name for most of the offices on the ballot anyway.
Rokita, of course, is an outspoken defender of one of the strictest photo ID laws in the nation. In the weeks leading up to the election, he also recommended filing charges related to bad voter registrations delivered by ACORN, the community activist group.
Then, a funny thing happened to Rokita on the way to voting:
His own absentee ballot was challenged by precinct poll workers.
According to Marion County election officials, his messily inscribed signature upon checking in to vote -- he signed it "Todd Rokita" -- did not match his neat poll book signature of "Theodore Rokita."
Rokita's ballot was placed in the provisional pile, and will undoubtedly be counted once the Election Board reviews it, but the irony is well worth the chuckle.
For the last month, Republicans across Indiana fought tirelessly against voting access, seeking to close polling locations and building up straw men at every turn.
Before the election, GOP secretary of state Todd Rokita, a fast-emerging TPMmuckraker favorite, had called on law enforcement authorities to investigate ACORN, claiming he had found evidence of widespread registration fraud perpetrated by the group.
And the Lake County Republican party had filed suit, unsuccessfully, to shut down early voting "satellite" centers in three Democratic cities in the northern part of the county. The GOP argued, among other things, that allowing early voting at the satellite centers, rather than limiting it to the county seat, which is in a more Republican area of the county -- could increase the chances of fraud.
But yesterday, the man who led the Republicans' legal effort in Lake County, party chair John Curley, told the Chicago Tribune: "The election is over and it was a good clean election."
Curley even added, according to the paper, that early voting "might be the wave of the future."
The final margin of victory for Obama in Indiana was just 22,986 votes -- close enough that Republicans might have been expected to raise concerns over fraud if such evidence had existed.
It almost makes you think that Todd Rokita engaged in this farce for political reasons. But far be it from me to assert that the guy who endlessly supports a voter identification law that fights valiantly against a non-existent form of fraud might be prone to sacrificing the public good for partisan ends.
I originally posted this diary on Daily Kos this morning and was prompted to cross post here. Sounded like a reasonable request...so here goes my first post on Blue Indiana.
Am I the only one who sees the glaring logical problem with the following assessment of voter registration problems in Lake County?
Lake County election officials have alleged, and Acorn officials confirmed, that the organization submitted hundreds of potentially bad voter registration applications earlier this month.
Acorn officials contend they are required by law to submit all applications it collects, and a spokesman said they made efforts to call attention to applications that appeared to be problematic. The official said Acorn was the victim of unscrupulous employees and the organization fired at least five of those involved with the Lake County drive.
Rokita's letter, however, states that "complying with the law to submit legitimate applications does not allow Acorn officials to evade the law against knowingly submitting fraudulent applications."
In other words, ACORN was required to turn in every application, and therefore should be held criminally responsible for turning in every application.
Clear as mud, eh?
It seems to me that ACORN had some bad employees who committed some highly unethical acts. If ACORN is telling the truth about flagging these applications -- and there hasn't been any substantial evidence to the contrary -- then they are being accused of a crime for following the law.
That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Unless, of course, this is nothing more than a political ploy to stoke the deep-seeded fear of Lake County and renew the fundamentally false connection between the Democratic ticket and a troubled community organizing organization. But Todd Rokita wouldn't do that, would he?
Here's a real puzzler. If I'm so wrong about this ballot thing -- and there has been no shortage of folks on the right asserting as much -- why would the McCain folks turn in additional signatures this afternoon nine minutes before the deadline?
While McCain raised gobs of cash across the street, his clean-up crew was making sure they had their bases covered back in the Secretary of State's office. Well they had to do something -- the big guy himself was counting on them. At least that's what he made it sound like at the press availability following his "town hall" meeting this morning, where he confidently uttered this little gem: "I will rely on the governor heavily to make sure that I am on the ballot."
And rely he did. I'm still waiting for updates on the situation as it stands, because the Secretary of State's office has made it clear they have no intention to keep the lines of communication open when it comes to the person who filed the challenge.
The Indiana Democratic Party put out a statement, including this:
"If John McCain thinks he can bring his national campaign's shady ethical standards to Indiana by getting his friend Mitch Daniels to wave a magic wand to get him on the ballot, then he and his cronies are in for a big surprise," said Indiana Democratic Party Chair Dan Parker. "They think they can bend the rules to sneak their man onto the ballot with closed door meetings and shifting stories and Hoosier voters won't notice. Those are not the ethical standards Hoosiers expect from a presidential candidate or our statewide elected officials."
This is from an MSNBC broadcast just a few minutes ago:
ANCHOR: Right now he's talking about Serbia. Of course, we saw big problems there yesterday. When in Belgrade, protesters erupted, attacked the U.S. embassy. Less listen into McCain.
MCCAIN: .including economically for many, many years. Questions?
Q. [Inaudible question]
MCCAIN: You know, I leave that to the governor, the capable attorney general and state legislature. I don't have enough knowledge or involvement and I believe that's more of a state issue. But I will rely on the governor heavily to make sure that I am on the ballot. And knowing his efficiency, I'm sure that he can do that.
Q. [Inaudible question]
MCCAIN: Yes. Yes.
Am I the only one who finds the rhetoric here a bit troubling? Calling in the Governor to use "his efficiency" on this problem? Seriously?
And no, Senator McCain, this isn't just a state issue. The incompetence involved in this debacle recognizes no border, and your national campaign infrastructure definitely looks bad because of this.
The usual suspects are up to their usual games, which consists mainly of accusing me of being a pawn for the powers that be in the Democratic Party by citing the powers that be in the Republican party. Excuse me if I'm not impressed.
In order to answer some of the questions I've received today about my challenge, here's a super-handy timeline, complete with links to the daily Indiana Election Division reports that, while not official, I think give at least a general sense of the signature movement over the last week or so.
February 12th -- Attorney General Steve Carter and GOP chair Murray Clark hand-deliver the John McCain signatures to the Secretary of State's office, stating that they have more than enough in all of the districts.
A hand-count of the petitions in the Secretary of State's office puts the tally at 496, contradicting the IED report, but still putting the total under the 500 vote threshold.
I file my challenge of the 4th District petitions.
Oddly enough, the IED report for today bumped up a few ticks to match the hand-count figure from the day before.
And the latest GOP story, for those of you keeping score at home...
Cook says McCain only collected 491 in the Fourth Congressional District. Lafayette is in that district. Secretary of State spokesman Alison Fore says the four-member Election Commission will rule on the challenge by March 13th.
Indiana Republican spokesman Jay Kenworthy said he checked the petition and counted 531 signatures from the Fourth District. State Democratic Chairman Dan Parker said his staff counted 496 signatures from that district.
First things first: I never cited the 491 number. If you go back and look at my post, I say that the hand-count revealed 496, but the IED report said 491. Regardless, 199 and 499 are the exact same in this debate, because they are both under 500.
Next we deal with the GOP's assertion that they now have 531 signatures. Eight days passed from the point that Steve Carter handed over those petitions and when I filed my complaint. During that time, the IED reported no change in the vote totals they had in their office. Petitions weren't trickling in from the counties in the 4th, and there is no indication that additional signatures were turned in.
On the 20th, a hand-count revealed 496, and my complaint hit in the media.
On the 21st, the McCain camp and the state GOP say that they have found 531 signatures.
Thus begging the question: Where did these new signatures come from? They weren't there on Wednesday, as verified by the Indiana Democratic Party, and the previous week had brought us no movement on the reported vote totals.
It's a mystery, to be sure. At the end of the day, it sure looks like my initial assessment of how this would probably play out is on its way to fruition.
Now, let's be honest here: Todd Rokita and Steve Carter will make sure McCain is on the ballot. Mitch Daniels will see to that, I'm sure. But at the end of the day, he shouldn't be, and the people of this state deserve to know that.
And while the GOP's magic wand will undoubtedly make a few signatures appear behind closed doors in the next few days, this is a clear stain upon Senator McCain as a candidate, and Governor Daniels and his Republican colleagues as standard-bearers within this state.
Remember that whole "I'm going to challenge to keep John McCain off the Indiana primary ballot and make a symbolic point about Republican incompetence in this state" thing I was talking about yesterday?
Thomas Cook, who runs the liberal political blog www.BlueIndiana.net, contends McCain's campaign fell a few signatures short of the 500 needed in Indiana's 4th Congressional District. Cook filed an official challenge with the Indiana Election Commission on Wednesday.
Republicans dispute the charge.
"Our own count had us well over the required number," said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the McCain campaign. "And it's pretty clear that John McCain is the Democrats' worst nightmare, and this is obviously part of a desperate campaign by the Democrat National Committee."
The state GOP says more than 500 signatures in the 4th District were certified by county officials.
"They didn't turn that many in," countered Dan Parker, Indiana Democratic Party chairman.
Parker said the party counted the signatures McCain's campaign turned in Feb. 12, and they fell short in the 4th District.
I filed the challenge yesterday because my hand count numbers had the petition total at 496. The state GOP operation told the Washington Times that they "still had some coming in," which seems slightly different than the story they told Maureen Groppe. Regardless, the bottom line is that they filed on the 12th without the 500 needed signatures, and it had been over a week with no new signatures turned in.
They suddenly have some additional petitions out of the 4th District? How perfectly convenient.
These guys will see to it that their man is on the ballot in May, but this entire episode should make two things incredibly clear: The incompetence of the McCain campaign and its high-level Republican surrogates in this state (Mitch Daniels, Steve Carter, etc.), and the fact that the aforementioned individuals have no problem bending the rules when their own sloppiness gets them into trouble.
Update: The Indiana Election Division sent out their update today. Of note? They have switched the 4th District signature total from 491 to 496.
How many signatures were accounted for when a hand count was done? 496.
Oh, but don't worry. They have "a few more coming in" all of a sudden, so I'm sure Todd Rokita and Mitch Daniels will see that this is all taken care of.
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.)
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.
I'm not scared of this crew at all.
This is indicative of John McCain's sloppy, ineffective national campaign infrastructure, and more notably for Hoosiers, makes it extremely clear that the incompetency of Governor Mitch Daniels, Steve Carter and the rest of this bunch has no limits.
This doesn't just make John McCain look silly -- and it does -- but this makes the entire Indiana Republican Party look silly. Silly, and clumsy, and inept, and generally incapable of running a national campaign, let alone the entire country.
Now, let's be honest here: Todd Rokita and Steve Carter will make sure McCain is on the ballot. Mitch Daniels will see to that, I'm sure. But at the end of the day, he shouldn't be, and the people of this state deserve to know that.
And while the GOP's magic wand will undoubtedly make a few signatures appear behind closed doors in the next few days, this is a clear stain upon Senator McCain as a candidate, and Governor Daniels and his Republican colleagues as standard-bearers within this state.
Did I mention he is coming to town on Friday? I wonder if he'll have a few choice words for his trusted surrogates in this state?
Update: The DNC responded to my challenge in a release a short while ago, but the key part of it is this:
Despite the fact that the McCain campaign clearly failed to qualify for the ballot, Republican Attorney General Steve Carter and Republican Secretary of State Todd Rokita (who recently endorsed McCain) rubberstamped it anyway, trying to sneak McCain onto the ballot. Clearly, the Republican Culture of Corruption is alive and well within the McCain campaign.
A culture of corruption or a culture of incompetence, the fact remains that Hoosiers expect more from their officials, and I have no doubt McCain expected more from Mitch and the gang.
Over at the American Values Alliance site, Bill Groth pens another scathing indictment of the flawed logic that Secretary of State Todd Rokita is shopping around to justify Indiana's Voter ID law, which will soon be argued before the Supreme Court. Specifically, Groth takes a look at Rokita's recent statements made as part of his participation in the Indianapolis Star's "Five Questions" series:
After instructing his lawyers to fight ferociously to convince the Court not to hear the case, Rokita now says the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the appeal of the 7th Circuit's decision upholding Rokita's Law is "great" news for his side and that he is sure the Supreme Court will preserve Indiana's reputation as a "national leader in election reform". When asked by The Star why the State never presented evidence of a single person impersonating another voter to cast a fraudulent ballot, Rokita dodged and weaved. Impersonation fraud, he says, is "hard to prove" and the issue is so "politically volatile" that local prosecutors refuse to prosecute such cases. Again, Rokita cites no examples of any local prosecutor refusing to prosecute such a case. His argument, impersonation-fraud-exists- even-though-there-is-no-evidence-to-prove-it, is utterly disingenuous. Rokita knows that if a voter were to forge someone else's name on the poll book in plain view of precinct officials and watchers he would leave a paper trail and subject himself to serious felony charges. There is a good reason for the lack of evidence of imposter voting-it is utterly implausible to think that it exists anywhere other than in Rokita's paranoid fantasies.
You can read the rest of the post over at the AVA site, and I would definitely recommend giving the piece a look.
Pamela M. Prah of Stateline.org writes this morning on the growing trend of state election officials refusing to endorse or otherwise serve a partisan position while they are in charge of overseeing a state's voting procedures. As many experts note, the more who do this, the better:
"It just doesn't make sense to have the state's election administrator being involved in partisan politics. The perception of conflict of interest can be too great," said Mary Boyle, a spokeswoman for Common Cause, a lobbying watchdog group.
Deborah Goldberg, program director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Democracy Program at New York University Law School, said more needs to be known about the role of chief election officials in recent campaigns. "This is an issue ripe for more research. … People don't fully understand the partisan nature of the secretaries of state we've had."
Current secretaries of state have voluntarily refused to serve on political campaign committees or to publicly endorse candidates for office in Connecticut, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Vermont, according to a recent National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) survey of members in which 25 offices responded.
Seems pretty simple to me. If you are supposed to represent all of the voters in a state as the voice of responsible objectivity, it probably doesn't make a lot of sense for you to take sides in an election. I mean honestly, after the Florida 2000 debacle, who in their right mind would think that...
Those top elected officials who have shown their partisan colors on the Republican side include Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, who is backing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, while Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer is stumping for U.S. Sen. John McCain of her home state
...oh.
Kudos to Secretary of State Todd Rokita for refusing to stay neutral in the electoral process and openly ignoring the potential conflicts of interest that these sort of relationships create.
A little off-topic from the usual fare, but this came into my inbox via Jeffery Feldman, and I just had to share. (Kudos to Ricardo Thomas of the Detroit News.)
What you are seeing here is the NAACP's Republican Presidential Forum. Notice something a little funny? All of those empty podiums aren't a fluke, but rather show just how many of the nine announced GOP candidates showed up to the debate. (For the record, that's Rep. Tancredo up there.)
Hey Sec. of State Todd Rokita! I know you think that a majority of African Americans support the Democratic Party because they are stupid, but this picture may go a long way to describing the real reason why the black community feels their interests aren't important to your party.
Lake County election officials and Secretary of State Todd Rokita continue to have icy exchanges over election day problems related to state-contracted vendors. From The Times:
The Lake County election board insists a state computer vendor explain in person how one of its employees improperly altered public voting records.
Board members voted Tuesday to issue a subpoena requiring a representative of Quest Information Systems of Indianapolis to answer questions as early as next month regarding last month's mishap, said David Sak and Bruce Lambka, attorneys for the bi-partisan body.
State and county officials said last month a Quest employee was testing the statewide voter registration system when she accidentally altered the historical status of 58 Lake County absentee ballots cast in the May 8 primary.
The changes didn't affect the outcome of any May 8 races but could have resulted in the premature purging of people from the rolls of registered voters, Sak said.
County officials insist Quest explain how it will prevent such events in the future.
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I filed the challenge yesterday because my hand count numbers had the petition total at 496. The state GOP operation told 
