(La Porte County, IN) - Candidates in the 2024 elections in LaPorte County might want to take notice of recent fines leveled against previous candidates under a renewed commitment to enforcing campaign filing deadlines.
On Friday, the LaPorte County Election Board issued fines totaling around $23,000 to about 30 candidates from 2022 and 2023, as a result of missing deadlines to file campaign finance disclosure forms and notices of a campaign committee being formed.
Under Indiana law, LaPorte County Clerk Heather Stevens said a county election board must enforce various campaign filing deadlines candidates are required to follow.
For some reason, Stevens, who is also one of three election board members, said that there’s been no enforcement of filing deadlines over the past decade or so in LaPorte County. She also noted how some of the fines were from candidates in the two previous years not disbanding their campaign committees in writing with the clerk’s office after the election.
As a result, Stevens said, even if the candidate is no longer running, the campaign committees still legally exist and are subject to a $ 50-a-day penalty for missing the January 17 deadline to file the final campaign finance disclosure forms.
The forms list donors and how campaign money was spent.
“We keep harping and harping and harping to everybody when the election is over come in and disband it. Don’t just sit and keep getting hit with these penalties. I think this will be an eye-opener,” she said.
LaPorte County Election Board Deputy Taylor Van Sickle said notices were mailed to the homes of every still delinquent candidate from last year and the previous year 30 days prior to the deadline.
LaPorte County Election Board President Brody Shoffner read the state code about the fines county election boards must issue for missing filing deadlines before a few grumbling members of the audience.
“I warned everybody last year. I intend on enforcing every bit of that,” he said.
Among those receiving $1,000 fines was former candidate for La Porte County Sheriff in 2022 James D. Arnold. Lesser fines included an $800 penalty issued to Sean Fitzpatrick, who was reelected last year to the Michigan City Common Council and then resigned soon after beginning his second term.
Stevens said all candidates are required to file notices about their campaign committees being formed no later than 10 days after filing their candidacies.
April 19th is the deadline for this year’s candidates to file the first in a series of campaign finance reports.
Stevens said money from the fines will go into a LaPorte County Election Board Account, arguing that a good way to spend some of the dollars would be on better-educating candidates and their committees about the deadlines and other campaign requirements.
