Court halts ballots while it considers recount of 3-vote Indiana Senate primary

Indiana Capital Chronicle · Tom Davies · September 3, 2026

The Indiana Supreme Court hears a case during a 2023 oral argument. From left to right, Geoffrey Slaughter, Mark Massa, Loretta Rush, Derek Molter and Christopher Goff. (Photo from Flickr) The Indiana Supreme Court is stopping the distribution of election ballots in six counties while it considers legal arguments over the Republican primary recount that determined challenger Paula Copenhaver defeated state Sen. Spencer Deery by a three-vote margin .

The court’s order issued Thursday grants a request from Deery’s attorneys that no general election ballots go out while the Indiana Recount Commission’s actions remain under appeal .

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the case on Sept. 10 — a little more than a week before the Sept. 19 deadline in state law for county election offices to have started mailing out absentee ballots. Early in-person voting starts Oct. 6.

A map of Indiana Senate District 23. (Graphic from Indiana Senate Republicans) The order, supported by all five justices, prevents “the issuance, transmission, distribution, or use of general-election ballots for Indiana State Senate District 23 before a decision is issued in this appeal.”

Deery, a first-term senator from West Lafayette, emerged from the May primary with a three-vote lead over Copenhaver, who had the endorsement of President Donald Trump because of Deery’s vote last year against congressional redistricting.

But that lead flipped to Copenhaver last month after the Recount Commission threw out more challenged ballots for Deery than Copenhaver.

The commission’s certified totals gave Copenhaver 6,332 votes to Deery’s 6,329.

Deery’s appeal to the Supreme Court argues that six of the tossed ballots that voters cast for him should be counted because missing signatures were the result of election worker omissions rather than anything the voters did.

Copenhaver’s attorneys maintain that Deery has presented no evidence to support that claim and that it is too late for the courts to intervene because the Aug. 21 certification deadline for this fall’s election has passed.

The order affects ballots in Fountain, Montgomery, Parke, Tippecanoe, Vermillion and Warren counties in the area between Lafayette and Terre Haute. All or parts of those counties are in the Senate district.

The court said its order “does not prevent county clerks, election boards, and election officials from preparing all other aspects of the ballot by the standard statutory deadlines.”

The Deery-Copenhaver race is the only one undecided from the primary in which Trump-endorsed challengers defeated six other incumbent Republican senators targeted over their redistricting votes.

The Republican winner will face Democratic West Lafayette City Councilman David Sanders and independent candidate Joshua Brant on the November ballot.

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