Cheatin' Charlie

An Indiana Court has overturned the results of the 2010 Secretary of State election, “won” by GOP Charlie White, because as a candidate he misstated his residency for months in his previous elected position and was therefore ineligible to seek the Secretary of State position. White’s “victory” more than a year ago was through voter fraud, the court ruled, and the second-highest vote-getter, Democrat Vop Osili, has been declared the winner of the 2010 race for Secretary of State.

Republican Charlie White is out as secretary state and Democrat Vop Osili now has the job.

On Thursday, a Marion County Circuit Court judge ruled that White wasn’t eligible to be a candidate in the November 2010 election, setting aside an earlier decision by the Indiana Recount Commission. Judge Louis Rosenberg ordered that Osili, who received the second highest number of votes, be certified as Secretary of State.

Rosenberg ruled that White was not lawfully registered at the address he listed and did not reestablish residency at the address.

White is also facing seven felony charges, including allegations of voter fraud. A criminal trial has been set for Jan. 30

While a huge victory for the rule of law, and a severe dent in whatever propaganda the GOPs want to put forward about ‘voter fraud’ to support their push for ID laws, this case is largely due to the push by Bilerico blog publisher Bil Browning, writing at HuffPost:

If you have moved outside of your precinct since the last election, you must re-register to be eligible to vote. You may only vote in your old precinct if you move to another precinct within 30 days before the election. White moved more than 30 days before the election, so he was not eligible to vote at his old precinct. But, he did it anyway. He says it’s all an “embarrassing mistake”.

To put it bluntly, the “embarrassing mistake” was White not updating his registration when he moved into his new home in March 2010. However, when he physically travelled across town to his old polling location in May and signed his name and old address, is he saying he forgot that he no longer lived there?

The legal thing to do at that point would have been to not vote in the Primary. That’s not the choice Mr. White made.


Indiana Democrats issued this statement:

“More than a year later, justice has finally been served. We applaud this ruling and congratulate Vop Osili as the rightful winner of the 2010 election. This is the second judge in recent weeks to deny Charlie White’s attempts to dodge legal responsibility for his actions.

“As a result of his vote fraud, Charlie White was never eligible to be a candidate for this office, and he’s done nothing but embarrass Hoosiers since wrongfully assuming the position. This is a victory for Indiana, and it validates the months we’ve spent making it clear that this kind of behavior should not and will not be tolerated.

“We hope that Vop will be sworn in quickly so that we can restore openness and transparency to an office that’s been clouded by Charlie White’s antics for more than a year.”

So, next time you hear GOPs nattering on about the need to prevent voter fraud by denying people with the approved documentation the right to vote as they have for decades, mention former Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White, who served illegally for more than a year in that position due to his own voter fraud, something the incumbent in that office is sworn to combat.