Wife of Dayton councilman files challenges against two candidates; county rejects claims

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — On Thursday, the Tippecanoe County Board of Elections and Voter Registration reviewed challenges filed against two candidates running for a seat on the Dayton Town Council.

The challenges were filed by Cindy Marsh, the wife of council member Ron Koehler, on Aug. 25, arguing that two of the candidates had filed either incomplete or questionable candidacy documents to Tippecanoe County’s Board of Elections office.

Marsh had filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the county to obtain the candidacy application of Joy Tischer and Raymond “Rocky” Richards, who were both running as independents for the Dayton Town Council.

Ultimately, after hearing the arguments of both situations, the board determined that the issues brought up by Marsh’s challenge were the county’s election office's fault and not that of the candidates. The board decided not to remove with candidate from Dayton’s ballot.

Joy Tischer’s candidacy challenge

Marsh argued that Tischer failed to correctly fill out her CAN-12 documents, noting that within a section of the form that asks the candidate to provide the name of their employer and the nature of business, she only wrote “entrepreneur.”

Within her challenge filing, Marsh provided an online resume that showcased Tischer's employment with three companies in Lafayette, Joyful QHHT, Kemp Communication LLC and Orion Datacom Consulting LLC.

Due to this discrepancy within her documentation, Marsh argued that the board should revoke her candidacy to run on Dayton's ballot on the basis that Tischer failed to disclose her true employment history.

However, when Tippecanoe County’s Board of Elections office became aware of this clerical error on Aug. 25, the county informed Tischer about the issue and had her return to the county office to update the information on her CAN-12.

Julie Roush, the Tippecanoe County clerk, explained to the board that, according to Indiana code, if an issue were to emerge with a candidate’s application due to a county’s board of elections office mistake, then the candidate has the right to update the application.

In this case, Tippecanoe County’s Board of Elections office messed up by accepting the application with the “employer” clerical issue as well as an incorrect year on the application, Roush stated.

Tischer updated her application on Aug. 29, indicating that she was a self-employed consultant and was hired by two of the three companies in such a role. For Joyful QHHT, Tischer noted that she was still being trained to do the job and was not charging clients for her services.

The board asked Roush if there was a statute in Indiana law that Tischer broke by indicating that she was an “entrepreneur” and not elaborating further on her employment duties. Roush explained that she did not break any laws and since Tischer is a self-employed consulate, the labeling as an entrepreneur would not be considered a lie in the eyes of the state’s laws.

After determining that Tischer’s application was up to date and that it met all of the state’s requirements, the board voted down Marsh’s challenge and allowed Tischer to stay on Dayton’s ballot.

Raymond 'Rocky' Richards’s candidacy challenge

Similar to Tischer’s case, Marsh filed a challenge against Richards after discovering potential issues with his candidacy application.

Marsh claimed that Richards’s candidacy should be revoked noting that his CAN-44 form lacked a carrier signature and that he had not submitted a CFA-1 form by July 20, instead turning it in on July 31.

Roush explained to the board that this situation was the result of the Tippecanoe County’s Board of Elections Office conducting another clerical error when accepting Richards’s application.

When Richards turned in his CAN-44 application, the county employees noticed that Richards had not provided a carrier signature but assumed that he did not need to provide it since he was the individual delivering the application to the office.

Unfortunately, the signature did not refer to the delivery status of the application; rather it was meant to indicate that Richards, to the best of his knowledge, believed every individual who had signed and endorsed his candidacy was an eligible voter.

Without a signature on this portion of the application, his form should not have been accepted and would have made him ineligible to run on the Dayton ballot.

But Roush explained to the board that since this issue was caught the day he turned in his application but was not addressed by the county, then the fault lay on the county.

To remedy the situation, the county office contacted the state’s election office for guidance. The state informed the county that it could not disqualify a candidate over a simple clerical error caused by the county’s mishandling of the application. The county needed to provide the candidate with an opportunity to fix the issues if the overall application was determined to be filed correctly.

And so, the county contacted Richards and had him come to the county office to fix the clerical issues within his application.

Regarding the claim that Richards did not complete his CFA-1 form in time, Roush explained that whether Richards completed the form in time, since Richards completed the CAN-44 application, the county would have filed the CFA-1 on his behalf before the deadline.

After hearing this information, the board voted down Marsh’s challenge and allowed Tischer to stay on Dayton’s ballot.

Before the board voted on Richards’s case, Marsh provided a comment to the board about the way they voted on these issues.

“I just have to wonder, why we have these laws that require a candidate’s information on the form, like an employer or business, if it doesn’t really matter if it’s on there or not?” Marsh said to the board.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Two Dayton candidacies challenged; county finds no merit to claims