A new contested race is taking shape for this fall’s election as officials release details on how a school board member’s death will impact ballots.
Ron West, the Republican incumbent who’s held the District 3 seat on the Johnson County Board of Commissioners since 2012, is being challenged by Dr. Chele Heid, a Democrat from Greenwood. Heid was slated by the Johnson County Democrats to fill a ballot vacancy for the office on Friday. District 3 encompasses the northern third of Johnson County — Clark, Pleasant and White River townships.
This is the second challenge West, a retired business owner, has faced this election. He successfully blunted a primary challenge from Steve Powell in May.
Heid is a member of the Johnson County Public Library Foundation board, a physical therapist and the owner of Equality Engraving.
Clark-Pleasant ballots
Information has been released about how the death of a Clark-Pleasant Community School Board member will impact this fall’s elections.
Dave Thompson, who represented the school board’s Pleasant Township seat, died June 24. He had filed for reelection to the office, which is up this year, before his death, leading to questions about how it would affect fall ballots. Current school board members will appoint a person to serve the remainder of his term, which expires at the end of this year, but it was unclear about what would happen beyond this until Monday.
Since the school board filing deadline has passed, and because Thompson was the only candidate to file, the successor that will be appointed by the school board will hold the office. This means Thompson’s replacement will hold the office for the next four years, starting Jan. 1, 2025, said Trena McLaughlin, Johnson County Clerk.
Write-in candidates can still file, however. Write-in-candidates can submit a CAN-26 form beginning Aug. 7, with the deadline for submissions being noon Aug. 23. The form can be found online at in.gov/sos/elections/candidate-information/.
Presidential petitions
Additionally, two petitions for non-major party candidates to get added to Johnson County’s and Indiana’s ballots for the November election were dropped off for processing at the Johnson County Courthouse on Friday. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an Independent presidential candidate, and Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate. These petitions have to be verified by a county before being sent to the state, which ultimately determines if there are enough signatures across the entire state for a candidate to be added to the state’s ballots.
If approved, there would be five total candidates on Johnson County ballots, including current Democratic President Joseph R. Biden, former Republican President Donald J. Trump, and Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver, who is a 38-year-old sales executive and human resources professional from Tennessee.
Kennedy, a 70-year-old environmental lawyer and prominent anti-vaccine activist, is racing to secure a place on the ballot in states with at least 270 electoral votes, the minimum needed to become president. He abandoned his Democratic primary challenge to Biden last year and began campaigning as an independent. Among the major obstacles he faces is an expensive and time-consuming requirement to secure ballot access state by state, which will require him to collect millions of signatures that must be verified by election officials before his candidacy is approved.
He’s built a loyal following among people disaffected by American institutions including the government, corporations and the media, an ideologically eclectic group that will have an unpredictable impact on the election. Both Biden and Trump fear that Kennedy will draw voters who might otherwise vote for them.
As for Stein, this is the second time the 73-year-old environmental activist has run for president. A physician from Lexington, Massachusetts, she ran before in 2016 against Democrat Hillary Clinton and Trump. She has never won statewide or national political office. In a video announcing her 2024 candidacy last year, Stein said the current political system is “broken.”
Only one more deadline remains until fall ballots will be close to completion. Wednesday at noon is the deadline for political parties to fill vacancies for candidates to be on November ballots. Additionally, while the presidential candidates for the Democratic and Republican parties are all but assured, they still have to be formally nominated at their party’s respective conventions later this month. Although several questions have been raised about Biden’s fitness after last week’s presidential debate.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
