A man who wanted to show his love of Republican Donald Trump on the ballot in a nonpartisan Penn-Harris-Madison school board race has been kicked off the ballot.
In his campaign filing last month, Benjamin Dallas listed “MAGA” as his nickname. That, of course, is the acronym for Trump’s familiar campaign slogan, Make America Great Again.
In Indiana, school board candidates aren’t allowed to run under a political affiliation. But Dallas, believing the PHM board regularly addresses political issues, wanted to let voters know that he supports Trump.
Dallas thought he’d come up with a clever workaround since the law lets candidates list a nickname on the ballot. But the St. Joseph County Election Board wasn’t impressed. At their meeting Thursday the three-member board voted 2-0 to kick Dallas off the ballot.
The South Bend Tribune reports that board member Amy Rolfes, the Republican county clerk, abstained from voting because her fiance is part of a political group that had recently made phone calls related to the issues.
Democratic board member Chuck Leone said the move clearly signaled politics in a nonpartisan race. Republican member Tom Dixon called the challenge “petty” but agreed with Leone’s legal analysis.
