For the first time, Hamilton Southeastern voters will see party labels next to school board candidates’ names on the Nov. 3 ballot. But the 2025 law that created those labels contains a sentence that reads differently than the state’s own guidance — and the conflict is now threatening to knock the only two candidates for an Indianapolis Public Schools seat off the ballot entirely, as WFYI’s Caroline Beck reported this week.
No Hamilton Southeastern candidate has been challenged over party affiliation. The deadline to file one is noon Aug. 21.
Two tests, five words apart
Senate Enrolled Act 287 added IC 3-8-2.5-2.5(c), which says a candidate claiming a major party “must have voted in the two (2) most recent primary elections in Indiana held by the party.” Read literally, that means both May 2024 and May 2026. Miss either one and you fail.
The decades-old statute governing every other partisan candidate, IC 3-8-2-7, says the two most recent primaries “in which the candidate voted” must have been that party’s. That’s a test of consistency, not attendance — and the state’s 2026 Candidate Guide says so explicitly: the law “does not mean the candidate must have voted in the two (2) most chronologically recent primary elections.”
The school board provision drops those five words. The Indiana School Boards Association’s FAQ says the Election Division has clarified that the looser test applies — but that’s guidance, not law, and county election boards decide these challenges.
That is the Marion County Election Board’s problem. IPS District 4 candidates Lindsey Cornett and Chris Bultman both filed as Democrats and, per voter records obtained by WFYI, voted in the 2026 Democratic primary but not 2024. Loose reading: they qualify. Strict reading: they don’t. The board voted unanimously Monday to wait for guidance. “First, thank you General Assembly, because this seems clear as mud,” Clerk Kate Sweeney Bell said.
What’s still unsettled
The escape hatch. A county party chairman’s written certification of membership, filed with the petition, “conclusively rebuts” a challenge under IC 3-8-2.5-7. In races that were nonpartisan for a century, party chairs now hold an effective veto over who carries the label.
The remedy. The state’s Election Administrator’s Manual tells county boards they may remove a successfully challenged candidate. The statute is murkier: Section 7(f) governs what “shall be indicated on the ballot” — the label — not whether the name appears at all. If removal follows, the IPS District 4 race would have no candidates.
Who’s exempt. Libertarian, independent and no-party candidates cannot be challenged over political status. Only major-party claims can.
Locally
Thirteen of Hamilton County’s 27 school board filers declared a major party and are the only ones exposed: Flittner, Cashin and Kirby (Carmel Clay); Wright and Turk (Hamilton Southeastern); Forgey, Ray, Dye and Sampson (Noblesville); Anderson, Ogle, Crawford-Paree and Huff Willis (Westfield Washington). Seven of HSE’s nine candidates filed as no-party, independent or Libertarian.
Statewide, 379 Republicans and 66 Democrats filed — the only labels open to challenge out of 1,043 candidates, per the Indiana Capital Chronicle.
Challenges close at noon Aug. 21; county boards must resolve them by noon Sept. 4. The General Assembly doesn’t reconvene until January 2027 — two months after the votes are counted.