More on the Harrison Courthouse Mischief

There were more developments today with regard to the shenanigans in the Harrison County Courthouse discussed earlier.

It now appears that Rena Stepro, the current county treasurer and Democratic candidate for assessor, told various individuals in the Courthouse that she gave her key to Donahue, and this is how he gained access to the Courthouse and restricted areas within it, ostensibly for the purpose of producing a Democratic Party political mailing.

Moreover, Pat Wolfe, the county auditor and Democratic candidate for reelection to that position, may have dropped the ball in the handling of the issue by the Harrison County Commissioners. When the commissioners met in emergency executive session to discuss the Republican Party's open records request, no public notification was posted or given to the local media. This is apparently required under the sunshine law.

Similarly, when the video was provided for viewing by the commissioners to the county clerk and the Republican Party chairman, no public notice was given then either. At the very least, Wolfe (and the commissioners) made a considerable mistake in not giving this required notification so that local media had the opportunity to be present for the viewing of the tapes.

Additionally, the commissioners seem to have refused to allow the tapes for all of the cameras to be viewed, and refused to allow viewing of anything but a limited portion of the recordings of a few select cameras. Because of this, it is difficult to determine where Donahue may have gone within the Courthouse on the evening in question once he had access via Stepro's key. It is also difficult to determine if the two instances shown in the viewed tape footage were the only times he entered the building.

None of these mistakes escaped the notice of the intrepid Ms. Marian Pearcy, a local attorney and head of the Harrison-Crawford Bar Association. Moreover, they do not substantively impact upon the incident itself or the investigation thereof. They just reflect rather poorly upon the county government's handling of this matter.

With an election imminent, all of this casts a serious pall over the upcoming voting. The Indiana State Police are in the process of conducting an investigation involving examination of all of the surveillance tape footage and interviewing Shawn Donahue and others possibly involved in the events of that evening. This investigation, requested on Saturday, did not start until Monday evening. The close timing with the election makes the swift completion of the investigation both critical and (I should think) difficult.

Unless the tapes and the investigation can guarantee the integrity of the ballots and election materials and demonstrate that they were not compromised, this incident opens the door to a whole series of potential challenges after election day.

I do not think that anyone, Republican or Democrat, wants to prolong the election after tomorrow. The implications that this incident could now have for the races in Harrison County--and possibly even the 9th Congressional District--are quite serious.

This story is breaking fast. Reporters for the Corydon Democrat and the Courier-Journal were on the story today. It is my understanding that the Courier is going to carry the story Tuesday morning. This means that it has the potential to impact local races within Harrison County, because several of the individuals involved are standing for election or reelection this year. The Corydon Democrat will not publish another issue until after the election, but they are sure to cover it then.