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ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT CHARLIE WHITE David M. Brooks Samantha DeWester Indianapolis, Indiana ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT INDIANA RECOUNT COMMISSION Gregory F. Zoeller Attorney General of Indiana Stephen R. Creason David L. Steiner Deputy Attorneys General Indianapolis, Indiana

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE William R. Groth Karen Celestino Horseman Indianapolis, Indiana

FILED
Mar 15 2012, 9:19 am
of the supreme court, court of appeals and tax court

CLERK

In the

Indiana Supreme Court
No. 49S00-1202-MI-73 CHARLIE WHITE, IN HIS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, THOMAS E. WHEELER, II, GORDON DURNIL, AND BERNARD L. PYLITT,
IN THEIR OFFICIAL CAPACITIES AS MEMBERS OF THE INDIANA RECOUNT COMMISSION,

Appellants (Respondents below), v. INDIANA DEMOCRATIC PARTY, THROUGH ITS CHAIRMAN, DANIEL J. PARKER, Appellee (Petitioner below).

Appeal from the Marion Circuit Court, No. 49C01-1012-MI-55881 The Honorable Louis Rosenberg, Judge March 15, 2012 Shepard, Chief Justice.

This case comes before us only after deliberative actions taken by the executive branch, the Indiana Recount Commission, the General Assembly, the court system, and--most

significantly--almost two million Indiana voters who cast their ballots for Secretary of State in November 2010. The Indiana Democratic Party sought to have the winner in the election, Republican Charlie White, declared ineligible to assume office because he had not been registered to vote at the address at which he resided on July 15, 2010, the deadline for certifying candidates for state office. The Indiana Recount Commission dismissed this petition and later denied it, but the Marion Circuit Court reversed. The appeal before us today does not decide any questions flowing from White's subsequent criminal convictions, but rather whether the Democratic Party's petition was a basis for barring his taking office after winning the election. We hold it was not.

Facts and Procedural History

Charlie White married Nicole Mills in September 1998. They resided, together with their child, in the town of Fishers, in Precinct 12, Delaware Township, at a home on Broad Leaf Lane. White served as a member of the Fishers Town Council from a district that included the Broad Leaf house. White voted in the 2004 and 2006 primary and general elections in this precinct.

White and Mills divorced in December 2006, after which Mills continued to live at the Broad Leaf house. White began renting an apartment in Precinct 14 of Delaware Township, on Pintail Drive. In January 2007, White changed his voter registration from the Broad Leaf house to the Pintail apartment. The Pintail apartment was in the district from which White was elected to serve on the Fishers Town Council. That same month, he conveyed his interest in the Broad Leaf house to Mills.

In January 2009, White formed a campaign committee aimed at his candidacy for Secretary of State and filed a Statement of Organization with the Indiana Election Commission, listing the Pintail apartment as his mailing address.

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In May 2009, White moved out of the Pintail apartment and into the basement of the Broad Leaf house. The next month, in June, he became engaged to Michelle Quigley, with plans to marry early in 2010 but not to live together until that time. White changed his driver's license address back to the Broad Leaf house in December 2009, received mail at the Broad Leaf house, and testified that he intended for it to be his principal residence until he and Quigley moved into a third residence on Overview Drive, in Fishers (the "Overview condo"). (Recount Commission's Add. at 4.) The Overview condo was not in the district from which White was elected to serve on the Fishers Town Council.

In November 2009, White voted in a special election at the Precinct 14 polling site, indicating in the poll book that his address had changed to the Broad Leaf house. (Recount Commission's Add. at 4.) He testified that he believed he had also changed his voter registration back to Broad Leaf, but this was not the case--on February 22, 2010, he filed an address change with the Board of Voter Registration to effectuate this change. (Recount Commission's Add. at 5.)

White had begun the process of purchasing the Overview condo in September 2009. Through the course of a drawn-out purchasing process, during which White leased the Overview condo from its seller, White listed the Overview condo as his mailing address on multiple loan application documents, tax documents, utility bills, and employment records, with his former address listed as the Broad Leaf house. Pursuant to the terms of his mortgage, White was to occupy the Overview condo no later than April 27, 2010. Quigley and her two children moved into the Overview condo in November 2009, where White's own child also spent one or two nights a week. (Recount Commission's Add. at 9.) White's marriage was delayed from March 2010 to May 2010.

White did not change his voter registration before the May 4, 2010 primary election and voted at the Precinct 12 location for the Broad Leaf house. (Recount Commission's Add. at 12.) After the primary election, on May 11, 2010, White filed his Declaration of Candidacy with the Indiana Republican Party. He submitted his state convention delegate form to the Republican

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Party a week later. On both of these forms, he indicated that Broad Leaf was his address. White and Quigley were married on May 28, 2010, and White moved his belongings out of the Broad Leaf house and into the Overview condo in June 2010. (Recount Commission's Add. at 12

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