Scott Tibbs
No one is "banned" from running for office in Indiana
By Scott Tibbs, March 5, 2024
In a post on X, John Rust claimed that "81% of all Hoosier voters" are "unconstitutionally banned from running for public office" in Indiana. This, of course, is a lie. No one is "banned" from running for office by the ballot requirement used to keep Rust off the May 2024 primary ballot.
In order to run in a party's primary, you need to have voted in two of that party's primaries. This is an option available to every single registered voter in the state who is not otherwise disqualified for holding office. According to the
Indiana Capital Chronicle, "Rust's two most recent primary votes were Republican in 2016 and Democrat in 2012." Rust could have voted in the Republican primary in 2018, 2020 or 2022, and chose not to do so. Had he taken the time to vote, he would have qualified for ballot access.
The political parties have a legitimate interest in making sure that people running to represent the party are actually part of the party. The two-primary rule is a very low hurdle to demonstrate your membership in a political party. It says nothing about supporting candidates or the party's platform, just that you have voted in two primaries over at most three years. In the time that Rust voted in one Democratic and one Republican primary, I have voted in six Republican primaries.
Rust's attempt to pretend that
the two-primary rule is a broad-based discrimination against the vast majority of voters for the benefit of party elites simply does not match reality. Rust's refusal to do the bare minimum to meet the statutory requirement is his own fault, not discrimination . If you want to be a
United States Senator, you should at least be voting in primary and general elections. Ideally, you should be doing more than that, but voting twice per cycle is the bare minimum.
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