Three Democratic candidates are running in the May 5 primaries for Monroe County Clerk, and one Republican candidate running unopposed.
The county clerk processes and provides documents including voter registration, marriage licenses, small claims and child support. The current clerk, Nicole Browne, cannot run again due to term limits.
Candidates Tanner Branham, Joe Davis and Tree Martin-Lucas are running in the Democratic primary. Julie Hays is running in the Republican primary.
Branham’s goals include engaging younger voters and increasing voter turnout. Davis said he wants to improve accuracy in court filings and inform the public about clerk office services. Lucas said she aims to maintain fairness and transparency in the clerk’s office. Hays aims to improve customer service and maintain organized public records.
Tanner Branham
Branham, a graduate of Indiana State University, began working as chief deputy clerk for Monroe County in March.
Branham spent most of his previous career working at Indiana University as an IT professional, most recently as an executive assistant at the Office of Enrollment Management.
Branham said he has identified as a Democrat his whole adult life and is “a very active member” of the local Democratic party. He volunteered for multiple elections, including Liz Watson’s 2018 run to represent Indiana’s 9th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Biden-Harris and Harris-Walz presidential campaigns in 2020 and 2024. Branham is also the current chair of the Monroe County Young Democrats.
He decided to run for office last year after learning that Browne wouldn’t be running for re-election. Branham said his qualifications, such as his political science degree and experience with technology, set him up to be a good candidate.
“I bring a lot of skills to the office,” Branham said. “I have, you know, a lot of experience working in elections, working for candidates and stuff, so it just kind of felt like a perfect role for me.”
He said he hopes to bring his project management and technology skills to the clerk’s office to improve election security and to increase voter turnout by engaging with younger voters through social media. One of Branham’s main goals is to create vote centers in Monroe County.
Vote centers allow voters to cast their ballots at any center around the county, offering an alternative to traditional precinct-based voting, where voters are assigned to a specific voting location. Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales’ website says over half of Indiana counties have vote centers.
“I really want to bring vote centers to the county,” Branham said. “It will just make elections just so much more accessible and easier for voters.”
Joe Davis
Davis has been a resident of Monroe County since 1993 and grew up in Cass County. He describes himself as a “community caretaker,” and has experience with court filings. Davis has served as a Court Appointed Special Advocate in Monroe County family courts. CASAs are volunteers who advocate for the needs of children navigating the court system due to cases of abuse or neglect.
He previously ran for mayor as an Independent write-in candidate in 2023 after failing to get the signatures necessary to place on the ballot. He was also an Independent write-in candidate for Monroe County Council in 2024.
Davis said he decided to run on the Democratic ticket in this election because the county “lacks the numbers” for Independent or Republican candidates to get into office. He said he is not political, and people should “choose the best candidate to do the best job.”
One of Davis’s main goals is to ensure greater accuracy in court filings and inform the public about what the clerk does and how to access services provided by the clerk’s office. One way he plans to ensure accuracy is to implement automatic follow-up emails after people file forms asking them to review the forms for correctness.
“I have seen firsthand where the blind spots are, where sometimes a mistake or an oversight in filing on the part of the clerk's office can compound over time and become extremely burdensome to undo,” Davis said.
Davis also hopes to use his position as clerk to advocate for the Charlotte Zietlow Justice Center, where the clerk’s office is housed, to stay downtown or somewhere within the city, like within the city-led Hopewell neighborhood development.
Monroe County officials are facing pressure to resolve alleged constitutional rights violations at the county jail, which is housed in the justice center. The county council and commissioners have yet to reach a decision on whether to construct a new justice center.
Tree Martin-Lucas
Martin-Lucas has spent eight years working in the clerk’s office as both an election supervisor and chief deputy clerk. She is running as a Democrat and said in an email that her priorities are to run the clerk’s office with integrity, professionalism and a commitment to public service.
During her time at the clerk’s office, Martin-Lucas said she gained a complete understanding of how the office operates and has learned to coordinate with different volunteers and state election authorities to conduct fair and secure elections.
“Through these roles, I have built strong working relationships with the people who rely on the Clerk’s office every day — our judges, court staff, county departments, and state election officials,” Martin-Lucas wrote in a statement to the Indiana Daily Student. “Those relationships matter, because the Clerk’s office sits at the center of many moving parts in county government.”
Another one of Martin-Lucas’s goals is to listen to her staff, colleagues and the citizens who rely on the clerk’s office to support their work and needs.
She said she’s confident the county will continue to hold fair elections, which she attributes to bipartisanship in planning early voting and elections.
Julie Hays
Hays, the sole Republican candidate for clerk, is a lifelong resident of Monroe County and a graduate of Ivy Tech Community College. According to her Facebook, Hays’ goals for the clerk’s office include improving customer service, transparency and ensuring that public records are accessible and organized.
Hays did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication.
The clerk’s office is located in the Charlotte Zietlow Justice Center on North College Avenue and is open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays. The primary election will take place May 5.
