INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana’s candidates for secretary of state on Tuesday said the office needs to better align its business services with the needs of business owners and consumers.
During a forum sponsored by the Rotary Club of Indianapolis and moderated by WISH-TV government reporter Garrett Bergquist, the four candidates detailed plans for securities protection, auto dealer regulation, and business filing systems. Although the secretary of state’s office is best known for administering elections, it also oversees business licensing and several related regulatory functions.
Consumers can file complaints and get restitution through the office’s securities division, which includes investigators and attorneys who assist law enforcement and prosecutors on securities cases.
“Part of that role is to educate our most vulnerable populations about the signs of being defrauded. And I think we can do a little bit better job of expressing that,” Shillings said, adding that she believes the office can also do a better job of monitoring restitution in those cases.
Ballard said he will push for a closer working relationship between the securities division and its counterpart in the attorney general’s office, which focuses more on criminal prosecutions. Engling said he will focus on better educating business owners about securities regulations and resources available to them, while Bayh said the office needs to better advertise those tools and make them work for entrepreneurs.
The candidates also said they want to improve vehicle titling at the dealer level. Engling said he is already talking to state lawmakers about ways to simplify titling. Shillings said the office needs to listen to all dealers’ needs regardless of whether they donated to the officeholder’s campaign, while Ballard said he wants to improve communications between the auto services division and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Ballard said communication must also improve whenever the office fines dealers.
“One thing that I’m really interested in is e-title. Some of the paper titling in the dealerships has increased costs. It’s made some things messy with title searches and things like that. To the extent that we can move in an e-title direction, I think that makes sense,” Bayh said.
Engling split from the other candidates over how election officials handled the recount between state Sen. Spencer Deery, R-West Lafayette, and primary challenger Paula Copenhaver. The Indiana Recount Commission, consisting of one Republican, one Democrat, and the secretary of state, rejected several ballots over a lack of a county clerk’s seal and awarded Copenhaver the election before the Indiana Supreme Court reversed the decision.
Bayh, Ballard, and Shillings all said ballots should not be thrown out due to clerical errors and voter intent should be respected. Bayh said he will work with the legislature to codify that into state law. Ballard said he wants to replace the current recount commission with five retired judges serving on a nonpartisan basis. Shillings said she agrees with the court’s decision but does not believe changing the commission is necessary, noting that any change to state law must go through the General Assembly.
Engling said both the recount commission and the Indiana Supreme Court followed the law as written and he accepts both decisions.
“If you have a preferred outcome, you can work directly with the Statehouse to change the law, but otherwise, you have to follow the law,” he said.
Engling was also the only candidate who did not disavow turning over voter data to the federal government, unlike outgoing Secretary of State and fellow Republican Diego Morales. Engling did not explicitly say whether he would turn over bulk data, but stated the office’s core responsibility is ensuring voter registrations are valid. Shillings said elections should remain sovereign to states. Bayh said personal data should not go to the federal government without good cause.
“The fact that the federal government wants to interfere in our elections goes up against the founding of our country. That’s not how we were built,” Ballard said. “The states run their elections. It’s always been that way, and to bring the federal government into our elections, wow.”
All four candidates said each county should decide whether to become a vote center county. Hamilton County will become the 73rd of Indiana’s 92 counties to adopt the vote center model next year. The candidates also said officials in each county should decide whether to use hand-marked paper ballots or another voting system such as a ballot marking device. State law requires a paper audit trail for all voting forms.
Early voting continues through Nov. 2. Election Day is on Nov. 3.
