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Several Republicans Thrown Off Allen County Ballot

By Laura Donaldson
June 18, 2010 Updated Mar 9, 2010 at 6:13 PM EST

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Indiana’s NewsCetner) - Several republicans are now removed from the 2010 Allen County ballot.

Those republicans were removed after crossing over to vote in the other party's primary.

Four different candidates registered as democrats in their most recent primary election. The act of crossing over cost the republican candidates their chance to run. That’s because Indiana law states you're only eligible to run in the party primary that you last voted in. So if you voted as a democrat in the 2008 primary you must run as a democrat in the 2010 election.

“All they needed to do is go to the party chairman, Steve Shine, and explain the situation and he could have provided a consent which then would have been attached to the form,” Allen County Election Board Chairman and Republican Zach Klutz said. “It doesn't preclude them. They just needed to provide a consent and in this case they didn't.”

Candidates removed from the May 2010 ballot are Todd Sorg, running for Huntertown Town Council, Shawn Heimann, William Johnson, John Benjamin, and Carole Maymon running for state delegate.

“It was kind of a surprise to me and a shock to me because I'm not running for the U.S. Senate, I'm not running for House of Representatives, I'm not running for President, I'm running for Huntertown Town Council” Todd Sorg said. “I'm trying to be involved in the community I live in. I ran in the last election for town council and you know I wanted to run again. So, it's just a little disheartening.”

One candidate admitted to crossing over because of the prompting by popular radio host Rush Limbaugh. During the 2008 presidential election, Limbaugh encouraged republicans to cross over into the democratic primary to vote for Hillary Clinton in hopes of beating then Senator Barack Obama.



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