Honestly, I’m not making this up. It is not fake news. It happened here, in a bellwether county, which lost that status last week after going for Trump in a big way. A convicted felon was elected as county auditor.
The incumbent auditor, “Jim”, had served for over 20 years as the county treasurer. He has a degree in accounting, is a certified public accountant, and has nearly 40 years of experience in governmental accounting Four years ago, he was elected county auditor. Obviously, he’s a competent and experienced person.
“Rebecca”, his Republican opponent, has no apparent experience in accounting. She said she had some experiences as a business owner. (not sure what that business was.) She’s also a notary. She won the election by about 2500 votes.
Trouble is, Rebecca used to have another last name. Somewhere along the way, she reinvented herself. Apparently, no one in the Republican party thought to check Indiana’s public records website . By keying in her original name, you see that 20 years ago she did jail time for committing a robbery. She had been arrested for another robbery two years before that.
When she filed for candidacy in the primary, it included a paragraph with the sentence, “I am not ineligible to be a candidate due to a criminal conviction that would prohibit me from serving in this office.” I guess Rebecca forgot she was convicted of robbery resulting in bodily injury back in 1996. Or maybe she thought it didn’t matter.
It boggles the mind. How in the world did Rebecca worm her way into the upper echelons of the Republican party? Since I’m not a political activist, I’m not privy to the facts. Undoubtedly, there’s a story to be told.
Fortunately, her past has finally caught up with her. She’ll have to go before a judge, who will hopefully decide that a felon convicted of robbery cannot hold the office of county auditor. Consequently, the person who came in second will retain his old job, after all.
I think I know what happened here. This is Trump country. He carried our county with 57% of the vote. And 41 % of voters in this county vote straight ticket. Which means they don’t care in the least about the qualifications of the person they’re voting for. Why would anyone vote straight ticket? There’s no excuse for that in a small city where we are familiar with the candidates.