Recount flips Indiana Senate District 23 win to Paula Copenhaver

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Paula Copenhaver upset an incumbent Republican state senator on Monday after a recount threw out several ballots.

Sen. Spencer Deery, R-West Lafayette, had been the presumptive winner of the May primary in Senate District 23, which stretches from western Tippecanoe and Montgomery counties to the Illinois border. At Monday’s hearing, the Indiana Recount Commission, which consists of Republican Secretary of State Diego Morales plus one member from each party, rejected a total of eight ballots cast for Deery because they either lacked the signature of the county clerk or one or both sets of initials from election judges. State law requires absentee ballots to be initialed by both a Republican and a Democratic election judge and bear the signature and the seal of the county clerk. The commission threw out two ballots cast for Copenhaver for the same reason.

The recount means seven of the eight Republican state senators who voted against redistricting and were up for reelection this year lost their primaries. The lone survivor was Sen. Greg Goode, R-Terre Haute. Deery went into Monday’s hearing with a three-vote lead. The recount means Copenhaver is now the winner, by an identical three-vote margin.

Deery’s counsel, Samantha DeWester, says she plans to appeal to the Indiana Court of Appeals.

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