INDIANAPOLIS (WRTV) — Former Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard on Tuesday said his success in gathering signatures shows his candidacy is a movement.
Ballard turned in his final batch of signatures to the Marion County clerk’s office just before Tuesday’s noon deadline. He said this brings his total number of signatures to about 74,000. This is far more than the roughly 37,000 he needed to get on the ballot as an independent candidate for secretary of state, though some signatures inevitably will be rejected due to errors.
It’s now up to the county clerks to verify those signatures. If approved, Ballard would join Republican Max Engling, Democrat Beau Bayh, and Libertarian Lauri Shillings on the ballot for secretary of state. If Ballard takes home at least 2% of the vote in November, that would put his newly-formed Lincoln Party on the ballot automatically for future elections. A 10% vote total for Ballard would mean the Lincoln Party would be able to hold primaries, as the Republican and Democratic parties do. Ballard said his early internal polling suggests he has the support of 23% of likely voters.
“This is completely doable. Two percent opens up the path for others to follow over the next four years and, hopefully, past that,” he said. “And that is something people are not used to. They’re not used to having an independent, somebody who will look at the job as a public service and not as a stepping stone to something else.”
Ballard has until July 15 to turn in certified signatures along with his candidacy documents to the secretary of state or to the Indiana Election Division.
