Jasper candidates agree on judge for recount; next steps varied

The three candidates for Jasper mayor have agreed on a judge to oversee the recount.

On Monday, November 16, representing incumbent mayor Terry Seitz, Indianapolis attorneys David Brooks and Samantha DeWester filed for the recount of the votes cast in the municipal election. The election resulted in a tie for mayor between Seitz and challenger Wayne Schuetter at 1,856 votes each. Independent candidate Joshua Budd acquiring 190 votes.

The attorneys filed in Dubois County Circuit Court with a request for a change of venue. If the request went unchallenged, the next available judge in the county, Superior Court Judge Mark McConnell, would have overseen the lawsuit and recount. If challenged by either of the other two candidates, the three parties would have had to come to an agreement on the new judge before requesting the judge oversee the recount.

Today, Schuetter released a statement that his attorney had filed a motion with the circuit court that an agreement had been reached on the judge to handle the recount. Schuetter is represented by William Groth of the Indianapolis firm Fillenwarth Dennerline Groth & Towe LLP.

According to Schuetter’s release, the three candidates have agreed on Daviess Superior Court Judge Dean A. Sobecki as a special judge. The agreement is contingent on Judge Sobecki accepting the appointment.

Sobecki’s court was listed as an alternative in Seitz’ filing last week.

If Sobecki accepts the appointment, he will appoint two Jasper registered voters, a Democrat and Republican, and a third person who is familiar with how voting machines work to the three-person recount commission. The recount will be conducted through the validation and re-tabulation of votes by the commission.

The recount commission will ensure the electronic votes cast are correct. They can compare the poll book voting sign-ups to the number of votes cast to validate that each sign-up was recorded as a vote. It is unlikely they will find mistakes at this point since the comparison was completed before the election was certified by the Dubois County Election Commission the Wednesday after the election.

The recount commission can also examine a printout from each machine that tabulates the votes cast for each candidate.

The recount commission will then examine Jasper’s mail-in and travel board votes that are done on paper ballots. There were 245 paper ballots cast in total; 161 by mail and 84 by travel board. About 175 were cast in Jasper. All paper ballots will be examined by the commission for mistakes or ambiguity on the intent of the voter.

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According to Angie Nussmeyer, the Democrat half of the Indiana Election Division, this is where mistakes are typically found. Paper ballots are tabulated by a machine that reads which bubble was filled in with a No. 2 pencil — similar to standardized tests in school.

According to Nussmeyer, she has seen where voters filled in the symbol of the party they were voting for rather than the bubble for the vote.

The recount has to be completed by December 20, but it can be extended by the judge if there are extenuating circumstances. This is where things become murky in regards to the process.

According to Nussmeyer, if the recount is not completed by December 20, since the clerk has certified the election results, it is her opinion the fiscal body — in this case, the common council —has a responsibility to break the tie for the candidate to assume office on January 1. If the recount is completed and the results are certified by the clerk, then the new election results would dictate who assumes power on January 1.

Nussmeyer didn’t want to speculate on what would happen after December 31 if the council didn’t make a decision or the recount was not completed.

However, According to Brad King, who represents the Republican half of the Indiana Election Division, the mayor can remain in office according to the Indiana State Constitution. Article 15 dictates that the office holder will remain in office until a new candidate is appointed.

To get an official opinion from the Indiana Election Division, both sides must agree.

The council has not announced its intentions on when it will make a decision on the election. The current council has four Democrats — Tom Schmidt, Earl Schmitt, Greg Schnarr and Randy Buchta — and three Republicans — Ray Howard, Kevin Manley and Dave Prechtel. Four will not be returning to the council in 2016 which will change the consistency of the council from a Democrat majority to a Republican majority with John Bell, Nancy Eckerle and Dean Vonderheide joining Kevin Manley.

According to Nussmeyer, she was aware of another tie in the state this season. “Recounts actually happen quite a bit. Some are happening in southern Indiana, and a couple are happening in northern Indiana,” she said. “In the other tie that I am aware of, each candidate had 31 votes which is much different than 1,856 votes. That was surprising to me to see that with that many voters, you would end up with a tie.”

The ambiguity of the next steps outside of the recount has caused some consternation in regards to procedural details that occur annually in a city. Each year, the mayor’s office has several appointments to various boards and committees that affect the operation of the city. Those include the Jasper Redevelopment Commission, Economic Development Commission and the Utility Service Board.

Typically, those appointments are approved in a council meeting that occurs immediately after the swearing-in ceremony of the new council and mayor. In 2012, Seitz deviated from that and a special meeting was held on January 3 to approve the appointments.