Questions raised about Chairman

LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - The six Tippecanoe County Republican candidates who voted Democratic in the last primary faced no challenges Friday.

Noon Friday, February 26, was the deadline for people to challenge.

Questions are being raised as to why the Chairman of the Tippecanoe County Republican Party, Bob Hicks, denied Tara Nelson and Bill Jones access to the 2010 GOP primary ballot, but did not challenge six other Republicans who voted Democratic in the primary two years ago.

"He voted Democratic in the last primary and he could have been challenged in that primary for being a Republican," said Hicks.

Jones' ability to be in this year's Republican primary was challenged by West Lafayette resident Roy Sparks. That resulted in Jones dropping out of the race for re-election as Tippecanoe Township Trustee.

Calls to Sparks were not returned and Jones refused to comment on the issue. Hicks also denied then Republican Tara Nelson access to the ballot to run for Congress.

"Bob Hicks gave me the option to wait a couple years and run for office, but I don't understand why they wouldn't have just let me run now," said Nelson.

"This thing with Tara, I asked for some advice of other county chairs in the Congressional District, and it pretty much just came back, well, you don't have much to go on. One election and it was Democratic and she was not to be persuaded to run for a lesser office," said Hicks.

In an email to WLFI, 4th Congressional District Democratic Chairman Jeffrey Fites, raised the question 'If Hicks wanted to stay consistent, why wouldn't he challenge the six Republicans who voted Democratic in the last primary, when he denied Jones access to the 2010 primary ballot," questioned Fites.

"I knew that there were six people. But again, I wasn't going to challenge those six people. I figured that they probably inadvertently done that," said Hicks.

Fites also questioned why Hicks advised candidates to leave the party affiliation box unchecked.

"There was no other alternative on that form. You either put something on there that is not true or you just leave it blank and the best advice I had got from the people at the state level, the state election board was that you just leave it blank," said Hicks.

While no challenges were filed against the six candidates, one formal complaint was filed by Lafayette resident Sue Render. The complaint will now be sent to the election board for review.