Hamilton County Democratic Party Chair Josh Lowry on Friday called on voters to reject every Republican on this fall’s ballot and demanded the resignation of Election Administrator Beth Sheller, the Republican candidate for county clerk — a demand Sheller flatly rejected.
Lowry’s statement came a day after President Trump, in a prime-time address from the White House, repeated his claims that the 2020 election was “rigged, fraudulent, and not secure,” alleging among other things that China acquired the data of 220 million American voters. The president offered no new evidence of fraudulent votes, and the dozens of lawsuits he and his allies filed challenging the 2020 results were rejected by the courts.
Lowry’s release turned the president’s allegations into an argument against local Republicans, noting that the 2020 election in Hamilton County was conducted under a Republican governor and secretary of state at the state level, and a Republican clerk and Republican election administrator at the county level.
“If President Trump is correct, then the 2020 election was not secure while being operated exclusively by Republicans,” Lowry wrote. “That leads to the only obvious conclusion: Republicans cannot be trusted to run elections in Indiana.”
The release singled out Sheller, who was election administrator in 2020 and is seeking the clerk’s office in November. “If she oversaw the most fraudulent election of all time, she cannot be trusted to hold an elected office that gives her even more power over elections,” Lowry wrote, calling on her to resign immediately.
In a written response, Sheller said she has no intention of stepping down.
“My record in planning and supervising elections speaks for itself,” she said, crediting the county’s clerk and election staff along with “at least 1,000 Democrat and Republican absentee board workers, traveling board workers, and poll workers” who serve in every election. “I will not let anyone downplay or question the job that these workers do. I have absolutely no intention of letting down these workers or Hamilton County voters by resigning from my position.”
Sheller, who said she has administered 11 elections in the county, offered what she called “a little election lesson”: most election procedures are set by state law, she said, and remaining decisions fall to a bipartisan county election board made up of the clerk and one appointee each from the Democratic and Republican party chairs. That board oversaw the public testing of voting machines in 2020 and certified the results.
“This bipartisan team approved and signed off on the 2020 election stating that the results were accurate,” she said. “Hamilton County voters will continue to see our elections be run with integrity and honesty.”
Sheller did not address the president’s speech directly, saying she does not know how other counties and states run their elections. “My heart is in Hamilton County,” she said.
In Thursday’s 25-minute address, Trump claimed declassified documents show American voting systems are vulnerable to being “rigged and stolen.” Election officials of both parties have repeatedly affirmed the security of the 2020 vote, and a group of 24 Democratic governors responded that the nation’s elections “have repeatedly been proven to be safe and secure.”
Lowry closed his release by quoting the president — “We want those elections to be honest” — and said that starts in Hamilton County. Voters will decide the clerk’s race in November.