The case of the missing campaign finance reports

This article is brought to you by Freedom Financial.

Every election cycle, candidates for office are required to submit finance reports that detail who gave money to them and how much, as well as how the candidates spent those dollars. And those records are supposed to be available for public review upon request.

Except in Howard County, apparently.

The records are maintained by Howard County Clerk Debbie Stewart. However, more than two weeks after the deadline given to candidates for submitting their reports, those records weren’t available to the public. None of them had been posted on the clerk’s web page. None of them were available for physical review and photocopying at the clerk’s office.

The Kokomo Lantern went looking for the records on April 30 after being contacted by Alexandra Durham, a member of the Kokomo Schools board of directors, and more importantly, a citizen allegedly served by the clerk. The concerned citizen wanted to review the campaign finance reports but was unable to do so.

Durham said she visited the clerk’s office prior to April 28, hoping to obtain the records. She was refused them by the clerk’s staff, telling Durham she would have to email Stewart to make the request. So, she did that. Three times. And she copied the Lantern on the third attempt.

“I am following up again,” Durham wrote in her third request to the clerk. “I would like these documents for all local candidates so that I can review ASAP before I cast my primary ballot. These documents should be publicly accessible.

“I called your office again today, and they again refused to provide them, stating that you’re the only one with access to them.”

There was no response. However, there may be a reason for the clerk’s silence. Durham sent the records request to debbie.stewart@howardcounty.in.gov. Stewart’s email address is debbie.stewart@howardcountyin.gov. One misplaced period may have sidetracked the request.

Still, that doesn’t explain how a physical visit and a phone call to the clerk’s office didn’t end with public records in the hands of the public. Durham was undeterred and reached out to the media for relief.

“After multiple attempts to obtain the election financial documents from the clerk were unsuccessful, I felt I needed to escalate the situation,” said Durham. “Making people aware is the only way I could think of to put pressure on her follow the law and do her job. I still have not received the documents or have any response from her. It makes me wonder what she’s trying to hide? What doesn’t she want the public to see about our current candidates? Who is she protecting?

“The law is the law, and our elected officials should be holding it to the highest standard, as well as doing their job serving the people. Not providing access to important election documents is highly unethical and prevents people from exercising their right to examine the financials and other pertinent information of any political campaign.”

So, the Lantern made a visit to the clerk’s office in an attempt to obtain the finance reports, only to be met with the same resistance.

When requested, the Lantern was told that the office could not provide the reports because they weren’t in the office at all. Stewart allegedly had the campaign finance reports “on her person.” And she wasn’t in the office. The staff wasn’t certain of the clerk’s whereabouts, explaining that there was an issue with early voting and that Stewart was likely at one of the early voting locations.

Indeed, Stewart was in the voter registration office in the Jeff Stout Government Building on East Mulberry Street, which is hosting early voting in an adjacent room. And given the conversations taking place, there did seem to be some election machine issues in need of attention.

When the Lantern asked Stewart for the campaign finance reports, she admitted they were in her possession yet said they were unavailable. When asked why, she stated, “Because I haven’t had time to get them to the IT department.”

It is not the responsibility of the county’s IT department to make public records accessible, and the records do not have to be digitized in order to be accessible. Still, Stewart pledged to get the records scanned and emailed to the Lantern by the end of the day on April 30. And she met that deadline, adding a caveat.

“Going forward, I will need a request in writing for this information,” wrote Stewart. “You can send it by e-mail.”

Stewart isn’t quite within her rights to require a written request. It is a formal process for a records request, but the law also allows for in-person or telephoned requests. Indiana’s Public Records Act requires the clerk to acknowledge a public records request within 24 hours if made in person or by telephone or within seven days if the request is made in writing by mail or email.

Producing the records is a different story. A public official must produce records within a “reasonable period of time,” according to state law. That period isn’t defined. It is dependent upon the complexity of the request and the work required to produce the records. In this case, given Stewart’s ability to turn around a request within eight hours for the Lantern, there is no reason why the records couldn’t have been available for the public two weeks earlier.

However, if the one-character difference in Durham’s email requests resulted in the missives not reaching the clerk, then the clerk did not ignore a formal request from a citizen to produce the records. She just failed to acknowledge or respond to in-person and telephonic requests made to her office.

Stewart keeping the only copies of a public record “on her person” is also problematic. Under the Indiana Archives and Records Administration standards, public records must be stored securely to protect against loss or alteration. They should be stored in a secure and environmentally appropriate location, and electronic copies of this information must remain accessible over time.

The Lantern is publishing these campaign finance reports for review so that the public need not struggle with the clerk’s office to obtain them prior to the primary election on May 5. Note that the PDF file for Ray Collins’ campaign finance report returns a blank screen when opened, likely due to an error in transmission. The reports accompany this story at https://kokomolantern.substack.com. Subscriptions are free, but the Lantern’s archive of earlier stories can be accessed with a paid subscription.