Foursome slate find success in Fishers, all three incumbents unseated from HSE board
Four times as many people voted in the general election in Hamilton County than showed up during the May primary this year. A total of 130,355 registered voters cast their ballots, most of them doing so before Tuesday. That is a 48.12 percent turnout. By way of comparison, only 30,993 voters – a dismal 11.72 percent – came to the polls for the May primary.
School board races were clearly a big draw for voters across the county. In those races – as well as a newly-drawn Indiana House District 32 with no incumbent, and redrawn State Senate District 21, which now pushes down into Westfield – there were some surprises when the votes were tallied.
An hour before polls closed Tuesday, a long line of voters waited outside the Carmel United Methodist Church to cast ballots. Those in line at 6 p.m. were allowed to vote. A record vote for an off-year election appeared likely as interest in school board races fueled the big turnout. (Photo courtesy Matt Snyder)
School board races were largely billed as slates of candidates running together on common platforms.
In Fishers, Hamilton Southeastern’s school board races saw major upsets with all three incumbents losing Tuesday and the four-person slate of Tiffany Pascoe, Juanita Y. Albright, Dawn Lang and Ben Orr all coming out on top.
HSE school board candidate Ben Orr’s supporters were in full force Tuesday. (Reporter photo by Nik Roberts)
Conversely, in Westfield, all incumbent school board candidates on the ballot will retain their seats.
Misti Ray secured an at-large spot on the Noblesville school board. She will join incumbent board member Dr. Joe Forgey. (Photo provided)
In Noblesville’s at large school board race, the “M&M” team of Melba Kiser and Misti Ray were clear and vocal about their desire to be elected together in opposition to current board member Joe Forgey and hopeful Chuck Haberman. They got half of what they wanted with Ray winning a spot on the board. Forgey will retain his seat.
The Carmel team of Brake, Brown and Sharp only picked up one of the three seats they set out to gain as Greg Brown won the District 3 seat over Jake Nichols.
The Hamilton Heights School Board White River Township incumbent Doug Ozolins lost to newcomer Benjamin Lehman.
On the partisan portion of the ballot, most of the results are red.
Following Greg Garrison’s ousting of current Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney D. Lee Buckingham II in the May primary election, the Republican attorney and former talk radio host went on to handily defeat Democratic challenger Jessica Paxson with just under 57 percent of the vote.
At the state level, the redrawn Indiana Senate District 21 was won by incumbent Republican Jim Buck over Democrat Josh Lowry of Westfield.
Indiana Senate District 31 goes to incumbent Republican Kyle Walker over Democrat Jocelyn Vare, who currently serves on the Fishers City Council.
Indiana House District 24 will stay in the hands of Republican Donna Schaibley, who defeated both challengers: Democrat Joellyn Mayer and Independent Kenneth Ticker.
Then we come to the new Indiana House District 32, which caused so much trouble in the May primary due to a recount arising from the Marion County portion of the district. Once more, our neighbors to the south in Marion County were the hiccup in these results. Marion did not report even their initial results until long after midnight.
While Republican Fred Glynn won the Hamilton County portion by 443 votes over Democrat Victoria Garcia Wilburn, at press time Wilburn appears to have won by 232 votes once the Marion County totals are added in.
In the race for Indiana Senate District 29, it appears JD Ford will retain his seat with a 1,267-vote majority over Republican challenger Alex Choi.
Wilburn and Ford will be the only Democrats representing any portion of Hamilton County come 2023.
Full election results are available on Page 3 in the Wednesday, Nov. 9 edition of The Reporter.
Reporter photos by Nik Roberts