Menu
Murray, Snyder candidacies now face challenges
With a challenge to a GOP candidate for Greencastle City Council now settled, the candidacies of two Democratic nominees have been challenged with the Putnam County Election Board.
On Friday morning, Republican Chairman Beau Baird filed paperwork to challenge the candidacies of Democrat Steve Snyder for the Fourth Ward council seat and Democrat Dave Murray for one of the three at-large council seats.
While the challenges are expected to be denied, the process will have to run its course.
After the challenge to Republican Cody Eckert’s Fourth Ward candidacy was settled on Wednesday evening, GOP representatives indicated they would challenge the two Democrat candidates on one of the same grounds Eckert was challenged.
At issue is that the proper associated paperwork was not filed for any of the candidates when their party chairmen named them to vacancies on the municipal ballot.
None of the three men appeared on the May primary ballot.
Democratic Party Chairman Kim Fidler had a letter on file with the Putnam County Voter Registration Office giving her the right to appoint candidates to fill vacancies on the ballot.
What no one was aware of at the time — including Fidler, Voter Registration Clerk Stacia Hathaway and County Clerk Heather Gilbert — is that the letter had to be attached to each filing.
The Republicans ran into a similar snafu, though the local GOP has a different nominating procedure than the Democrats.
In Eckert’s case, Baird, also unaware of the relatively new law, failed to file minutes for the meeting at which Eckert was nominated by the July 3 deadline.
On Wednesday, the Election Board ruled 3-0 that Eckert would not be kicked off the ballot for what was termed a clerical error.
No meeting has been set for the case against the Democrats, though the hearing seems to be a simple formality.
Scott Bieniek, who is both on the county Republican committee and served as Eckert’s attorney in the hearing, said he does not plan to push the issue further than simply filing the challenge.
Instead, he said his party filed the challenge to be prepared for the possibility that Fidler and the Democrats might appeal the Eckert decision to a trial court.
The only way for the Republicans to do the same would be to first file a challenge with the Election Board.
Noon on Friday was the deadline to challenge someone’s candidacy for the 2019 municipal election.
In Eckert’s case, his Greencastle residency was also challenged.
The board also ruled him eligible on those grounds, finding that he lived in the city at least one year before this November’s election.