Max Engling seeks to fight election, business fraud as Secretary of State
This article is brought to you by Jeff Lipinski for Howard County Commissioner District 1.
Max Engling was a late addition to the ballot for the Republican nomination for Indiana Secretary of State, but his career path appears to be right on track. The former aide to U.S. Sen. Jim Banks worked his way into the spotlight, garnering support from top GOP leaders as he turned back challengers, including current Secretary of State Diego Morales, to appear on the ballot this fall.
A portion of Engling’s journey ran through Kokomo, and he recently returned to the City of Firsts to tout his candidacy and meet with voters on issues he believes are of the utmost importance to Hoosiers: election integrity, economic growth through support of small businesses, and government transparency.
Engling was the second of eight children, which meant going to work to support the family from a young age. He studied at Ivy Tech Community College, IUPUI, and two semesters at Indiana University Kokomo, and he worked in construction and in restaurants to make it through school. But politics was his passion.
“I knew if I wanted to get an education, with not a lot of money running around with a lot of siblings, then I had to work and get that,” said Engling. “I paid for my school and worked that whole time, but I was politically active the whole time.
“I was working on Republican policy or politics, helping candidates get across the finish line in a few different places here in Indiana, and then I moved out to Washington D.C. when I saw a lot of conservative leaders winning their elections.”
Engling’s political work gained attention from GOP leaders, and he found himself working in Washington D.C. He made his way onto the Committee on House Administration, the chief elections committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, and served eight years in support of that effort.
“I got a lot of really good experience,” said Engling. “The House and Senate both constitutionally oversee their own elections, and I worked with those entities to look at races across the country and recruit and train folks who would be deployed as election watchers or recount specialists.”
Believing his time to advance to elected office had arrived, Engling returned to Indiana in 2023 and ran for the 5th U.S. Congressional District. But he finished third out of nine candidates in the Republican primary. The setback did little to diminish his ambition.
“It was a good experience to get out and listen to Hoosiers across the 5th District,” said Engling.
He regrouped and began working with state legislators on agricultural policy, which put him on the radar of U.S. Senator Jim Banks. When Banks won election, Engling joined him as a senior staff member, traveling across the state to help develop policies. So, it wasn’t much of a surprise when Banks touted him for Secretary of State.
“I had delegates coming to me directly for probably a month and a half prior to the deadline, asking if I would consider getting into the race,” said Engling. “I told them no for quite a while; I wasn’t considering it.
“Banks had endorsed the current Secretary of State at that time, and I have enough political sense to know you can’t run ahead of that. It didn’t make sense to run.”
The encouragement didn’t stop. When Banks approached him with the news that he was pulling his support for Morales, Engling talked about it with his wife, prayed on it, and decided to enter the race. That brought an immediate endorsement from Banks, along with one from Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita.
Engling was the GOP’s choice, and now he is traveling the state again; this time for his own candidacy. Now he has to convince the rest of the state he is the right choice in November.
“A lot of it is how do we get government out of your life?” Engling said of his platform. “How do you have responsible regulation, but not overbearing regulation? How do we make things better?”
His answer starts with election integrity. Engling acknowledged that Indiana ranks seventh in the nation in maintaining fair and secure elections, but he wants it to be better, ensuring only eligible citizens are able to cast votes.
“One way to do that is by changing the color of an ID for somebody that is here legally, but is not a citizen, therefore ineligible to vote,” said Engling. “So, if someone brought a, say, purple ID into a polling place to attempt to vote, it would be very obvious to the clerk at the poll that person is not eligible.”
According to the Secretary of State’s office, there were 165 people registered to vote in Indiana who were not eligible, and 21 of them successfully voted. With 4.6 million people registered to vote in Indiana, the number of ineligible voters is certainly small. No election was actually impacted by those 21 votes.
“I don’t disagree that it’s low,” said Engling. “We’ve been doing a good job. However, my responsibility is to say that even if we have one person voting illegally, it’s too many. If you’re hiring me to be a specialist on elections, my job is to make sure that we do the best possible job on behalf of our voters, so that they have confidence in the elections.”
Engling added that, as Secretary of State, he would work with the attorney general’s office to prosecute each illegal voter. To aid in identifying ineligible voting, he intends to fully implement a program established in 2024 that allows the office to conduct voter roll maintenance across the state. This should ease some of the burden placed on county clerks’ offices in making sure only eligible voters access the polls.
This effort also plays into Engling’s intent to make the office’s activities transparent to everyone. He wants to create an avenue where citizens can relay information on election integrity directly to the secretary of state’s office.
But elections are just part of the job. Engling intends to improve the environment for small businesses by reducing regulations and “red tape” if elected. He acknowledges that registering a small business in Indiana is a rather straightforward process, but he wants to crack down on business filing fraud, specifically when it comes to trucking companies.
“Those companies will file an LLC with the secretary of state’s office and then employ drivers that either have no English proficiency or are not here legally and therefore shouldn’t have a commercial driver’s license,” said Engling. “Those folks have been in wrecks on the road, as we’ve seen over the course of the last year.
“Hoosiers have been killed or seriously injured, and then when they’re held accountable, the company will dissolve, and the owner will refile an identical business to move forward and try not to pay those penalties.
“It’s a real challenge in Indiana. There were four people killed in Jay County. There was a mother, a grandmother, and a granddaughter who were hit in Porter County. It’s happened across the state. We have folks who should not be driving on our roads, and they are driving without proper training, without proper licensing.”
Engling contended that the trucking industry is supportive of stronger regulations in Indiana as they don’t want to suffer the black eye caused by the few companies exploiting the system. And the Indiana Legislature gave new authority to the secretary of state in 2025 to review the verification process for LLC filings to better detect fraud.
All of these efforts, Engling believes, will help Indiana to continue its success as a net positive economic growth state.
“My goal is to make sure that my kids, that future generations, want to pick Indiana,” said Engling. “I want them to stay here and continue to thrive in a state that I love. I know what it means to be a Hoosier. I know what folks are going through now and what it means to be invested in the state for the long term. I want to make sure we take what we’re doing well, build on it, and leave that to the folks coming behind us.”