Former Ind. secretary of state White sentenced

Former Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White was sentenced Feb. 23 to a year of home detention and a $1,000 fine following his conviction of six felonies.

However, a legal dispute about who should fill White’s position continues at 9 a.m. today before the Indiana Supreme Court.

The decision by the state’s highest court will determine whether Gov. Mitch Daniels will be allowed to name White’s replacement for the remainder of his term or if the Democratic candidate in the 2010 election, Vop Osili, should fill the vacancy.

White was found guilty of six felonies before the Hamilton County Superior Court on Feb. 4, including three counts of voter fraud, two counts of perjury and one count of theft.

Each of these felonies occurred before White was elected secretary of state in 2010, when he was a member of the Fishers, Ind., Town Council.

Currently, Chief Deputy Jerry Bonnet occupies the secretary of state’s office on an interim basis by appointment from Daniels. While the Indiana Republican Party cites a state law requiring White’s replacement must be from their party, Indiana Democrats disagree.

Instead, Democrats argue their candidate, Osili, should replace White, although he trailed White by about 300,000 votes in the 2010 election.

Because White moved with his fiancée into a new voting precinct but continued to use the address of his ex-wife, Indiana Democratic Party Spokesperson Jennifer Wagner said, White should not have been a legally-recognized candidate in the first place.

“It’s not about his removal. It’s the fact that he was disqualified from ever being a qualified candidate in the first place,” Wagner said. “It’s like he never existed on the 2010 ballot.”

Citing current law, Wagner said the second-place finisher should be appointed the office-holder in the event that the winning candidate is disqualified from the election.

But under a state code, Indiana Republican Party Communications Director Pete Seat said, if an office holder is convicted of a felony and removed from office, the governor is given authority to appoint a replacement from the same party.
 
This procedure is true, the law reads, for all state elected officials who are unable to continue their term for reasons other than resignation or death.

“The Democratic Party has tried time and again to overturn an election they lost and disenfranchise the will of hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers,” Seat said. “We look forward to final clarity from the Indiana Supreme Court, but we are confident that the governor will be appointing a Republican to replace Charlie White.”

A spokesperson for the governor’s office declined to comment on the issue until the court makes its ruling.

While a final verdict from the Indiana Supreme Court could take a week or longer, Wagner said Osili is the “right person to come in, clean up this mess, take charge of the office and move beyond this unfortunate situation.”