Election Board to enforce campaign spending report law
The Adams County Election Board is done warning candidates about the need to file campaign spending reports or disbanding a campaign.
On a motion Thursday morning at their monthly meeting, member J. Swygart moved that the Adams County Clerk’s office send the select few candidates who failed to meet Wednesday’s deadline of filing their report a first class letter by mail informing them they have a 10-day grace period to file their report or face a state-mandatory $50 per day fine.
County clerk Shelly Brite noted she had notified Democratic county chairwoman Barb Engle and GOP chairman Steve Justus of the requirement recently so they could notify delinquent candidates to rectify the situation. She added the clerk’s office has seen “an influx of activity in this area” in recent days of candidate filings.
The law applies only to political candidates whose office would pay more than $5,000 per year. That would eliminate positions such as township advisory boards since their pay would be considerably under $5,000 but some township trustee positions would apply while a few may not. Candidates identified in the meeting as having not filed included Keith Blythe, a candidate in the general election for second district county council, Brent Luginbill, a primary candidate who lost his bid for county council, Nathan Mihm, Union Township trustee, township trustee Kerry Steiner, and township trustee candidate Alice Weil.
In past elections, the Election Board has waived these fees but as Swygart noted “I have a problem with not enforcing the law,” a point agreed to by both Brite, and Republican representative Nan Nidlinger (who was representing GOP agent Wes Kuntzman, although Kuntzman was present for the meeting via speaker phone and also agreed).
It was unclear as to which fund any money received from potential fines would go but Kuntzman reported he understood from past meetings he’s attended in Indianapolis that it would go to a fund geared toward elections.
Brite brought up the fact that one of her goals for the Clerk’s office (she was just elected in the recent general voting period) was to update the website for her office to make access for the general public much easier to get. “I have with get with the IT people to come in. I have a lot of ideas as to how we can do this–much link a link-related system. People could easily find out information about where they vote, if they are registered, what candidates are running, and much, much more.”
She estimated such an update of the website for her office could take up to one year to complete it to the point she is hoping to achieve.
Election board meeting dates were announced for the coming year and monthly meetings in June and August were deleted since only a city election is being held this year. Also since only about 20 poll workers will be needed in the city election this spring, it was decided to offer just one date of training instead of the scheduled two since many of the upcoming poll workers would have done it before. Saturday, April 29 was set as the date training would be held.
Other meeting dates (with a 10 a.m. start) will be on February 16, March 16, April 20, April 29 (training day at 9:30 a.m.), May 2, May 12, July 20, September 21, October 19, November 4 (training for poll workers
in the general election), and November 17 (this meeting at noon since that date and time is the deadline for provisional ballots to receive any corrections.
The Election Board set February 14 as the deadline date for voter list maintenance to be done (removal of names of voters who have died, moved out of the county, etc.
As required, the Election Board also approved an inventory of the electronic poll book system equipment and in a reorganization of the Board since it was their first one of the year, Kuntzman was again named chairman of the board. Swygart and Brite are the other two voting members.