Huntington County Clerk Felts, must be feeling some pretty heavy heat over her decision to change a date and time stamp on candidacy papers that were filed in February.
The story of the change, reported here earlier this week, has formed more questions that County Clerk Felts needs to answer. Two updates have come to light on this story. The first, is Mrs. Felts' story of a faulty stamper. Mrs. Felts had stated that the stamper was prone to misdating and mistiming. She had sent the device to the company for inspection and repair. Reported by http://www.huntingtondaily.com, a local internet paper, preliminary testing has been done. According to the president of Widmer Time Recorder Company, Robert Widmer, “It does look like it’s getting heavy usage, but there were no broken parts apparent. Everything seems the way it should be going from the factory,” Widmer said. “We set the time on it and test stamped it a couple times. Then we let the time roll over … it was perfect there.”
Mr Widmer went on to say that full testing will be done by this weekend.
The second part of this story that requires attention, is the canceling of a meeting by the county election board to review the accusation of misconduct and possible illegal activity on this issue.
It was also reported here, that on the recommendation of the state election board, the meeting was canceled. According to Co-Director of the County Election Division, Brad King, he had not advised the board to cancel the proposed meeting. The meeting was canceled, presumably on the advice of the state. King stated that he hadn't talked to the county board as a whole, but to Clerk Felts who is not only the person of the investigation but who also sits on the county election board. The state's answer to the inquiry, was that if the belief that a crime had been committed, the election board didn't have to be involved. That the accusation could be taken straight to the prosecutor.
Political corruption takes many different faces. But this one has the marks of it. First the charge of misconduct by the clerk (the changing of date and time to allow papers to be filed after a deadline), and the taking the problem to a board that the accused sits on. This not not only hits on misconduct, but also involves illegal activity by the clerk as well as ethics violations of the office. Not to mention a coverup by those in charge (the election board) of making sure that filing, candidacy and elections are above reproach.