Unbelievable

This, via Kay at Balloon Juice:

Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White was indicted Thursday on seven felony charges, and pressure arose almost immediately for him to step aside... A Hamilton County grand jury indicted White on three counts of voter fraud for allegedly lying about his address when he voted in last year’s Republican primary. He also faces charges of perjury and fraud on a financial institution – again, for lying about his address – as well as theft for continuing to collect his salary as a Fishers Town Council member after moving from his designated district.
White has explained his actions as mistakes made in the heat of his 2010 campaign for secretary of state.
Dan Sigler, one of two special prosecutors chosen because of White’s political affiliations in Hamilton County, countered that White willfully deceived voters and the town of Fishers.
“The grand jury indicted him not because of an honest mistake, but for a willful violation of the law,” Sigler said. “He did it to hold on to his council seat.”
Only a felony conviction would require White to lose his elected position — and it doesn’t appear there is anything the governor, the legislature, the party or the voters can do to strip him of the office in the meantime except pressure him to resign or, at least, temporarily step aside.

Now I'll admit, right after I moved from the parents house to my house, I voted using my parents address.  Of course, both places were located in the same precinct, I'd only been there a couple of weeks, and I got no financial benefit from not correcting my address.  Also, I wasn't running for the elected position in charge of enforcing electoral laws in my state.  Kind of the same, but kind of different.

Kay does a good job of going over the stupid voter ID law which is in place in Indiana to suppress the vote, er, excuse me, prevent voter fraud.  I've always been amazed by the Republican fears of voter fraud.  Hell, most people are too lazy to vote once, let alone several times. 

This is a pretty impressive case of somebody being elected to statewide office who has no business in being there.  It's not exactly Marc Dann being elected Attorney General in Ohio, but it's close.  When I first opened up the story, I thought that maybe this was a political charge, by some Democratic prosecutor trying to make a name for himself.  But it is in Hamilton County, probably the richest and one of the most conservative counties in Indiana.  Trying to keep a council seat when you move out of town, not a good idea.