BLOOMINGTON – Police in Bloomington say they have contacted authorities in Louisiana about their search for a college student whose disappearance has similarities to that of an Indiana University student who has been missing forINDIANAPOLIS – GOP gubernatorial hopeful Jim Wallace might not have enough signatures to qualify, but he is running anyway.
Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Pence and Democrat John Gregg are already on the ballot in their race to be the state’s next governor.
Wallace delivered a box of about 7,000 petition signatures to the Indiana Secretary of State’s Office on Friday, saying he had more than enough to meet the requirement of 500 per congressional district.
“We’ve made a lot of headway in terms of name ID, and we look forward to debating Mike Pence on the issues,” he said.
About an hour after those remarks, Marion County election officials said Wallace was 14 signatures short in the 7th Congressional District.
That was an improvement from earlier in the week when he was said to be 111 short, but it’s still not enough.
Wallace said he’s confident he has the valid signatures needed. He added that Marion County is using different information to verify the names compared with other counties.
“It’s never good to have a hiccup like this,” he said. But he said it forced his campaign to get out and meet more voters.
Any voter can file a challenge of Wallace’s candidacy with the Indiana Election Commission. To get him kicked off the ballot, three members of the panel would have to agree.
The panel has two Republican members and two Democratic members and regularly has difficulty reaching three votes on issues before the panel.
