By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
June 26, 2025
FORT WAYNE – As state Republicans were inside the Grand Wayne Convention Center in Fort Wayne on Saturday selecting their nominee for secretary of state, former Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard was a few miles away greeting Hoosiers at the 29th annual BBQ RibFest.
Ballard, who is mounting an outsider campaign for Indiana secretary of state, was feeling confident about his chances in the November general election. He needs to collect 36,943 valid signatures from Indiana registered voters by the end of June to get on the ballot as an independent and despite calling the signature requirement “onerous” and “punitive,” he believes he will clear that hurdle.
During the Republican convention, his campaign announced it had collected 52,501 signatures to get him on the ballot and by Tuesday, that number had jumped to 64,183. His campaign is planning to make a final push for signatures by being at 12 locations around the state this Saturday and asking Hoosiers to sign the “petition of nomination” form required of independent candidates.
The signatures collected so far still have to be verified by the county clerks, but Ballard said his campaign’s internal review of the signed petitions is indicating he will meet – if not exceed – the required number.
Consequently, Ballard could become the fourth candidate to enter the secretary of state race. When asked if he would be the spoiler in the election, Ballard erupted, “No, no, no, no.”
“I’m not trying to spoil anything,” Ballard said. “I want to go in and clean this office up and keep it in such a way that stays there for the future (as a) nonpartisan and independent office, where there’s absolutely no question how that office is going to be run.”
The contest for secretary of state will likely be heated.
At their convention, Indiana Republicans sidelined current secretary of state Diego Morales and nominated Max Engling, a staff member for U.S. Sen. Jim Banks, R-Indiana. Engling was a late entrant into the race for the GOP nomination, but he quickly garnered the support of elected Hoosier Republicans in state and congressional offices.
Earlier in June, Indiana Democrats rallied behind Beau Bayh and selected him as their secretary of state candidate. Bayh has the advantage of name recognition, since his father, Evan, served as Indiana governor and a U.S. senator and his grandfather, Birch, served as speaker of the Indiana House and also as a U.S. senator.
Indiana Libertarians nominated Lauri Shillings to run for secretary of state. She is an entrepreneur and small-business owner.
Ballard sees the November election as becoming a fight between himself, Engling and Bayh. Ballard is distinguishing himself by highlighting the one thing he believes is his advantage over the Republican and Democratic nominees: experience.
Not only does Ballard have experience running a public administration but he also has experience surprising political pundits.
In 2007, Ballard, then a relatively unknown Republican, upset Democratic incumbent Bart Peterson in the Indianapolis mayoral race. He outmatched an incumbent who had better name recognition and a sizable campaign war chest. During his two terms as mayor of a city with roughly 800,000 residents, Ballard managed about 7,000 employees and oversaw a billion-dollar budget.
“I’m now the only candidate in the race that’s actually been in charge of anything. Neither of them have been in charge of anything,” Ballard said of Engling and Bayh. “If they want to clean house in that office, which both of them are saying, they have no experience in doing that. I do; they don’t.”
Ballard’s effort to get on the ballot has hit a few bumps.
In April, the campaign had to issue its first-quarter finance report in a press release, because it was unable to get the login credentials to post the documents on the Indiana Election Division’s online portal.
Days before the state GOP convention, Hamilton County Republican Party Chair Mario Massillamany called for an investigation into allegedly fraudulent signatures the Ballard campaign submitted to the Hamilton County Circuit Court Clerk.
Speaking of the problem in Hamilton County, Ballard said the alleged forgery was a single incident caused by one subcontractor paid to collect signatures. “One guy, one time,” he said. Also, he noted the verification system worked because the potential fraud was discovered early and the signatures were not counted in the total needed to get on the ballot.
Most recently, the campaign got fined $450 for failing to file two large donation reports by the 10-day deadline. One donation was from an individual for $10,000 and the other was from the Hoosiers for Competitive Elections political action committee for $78,000. In a statement, Ballard said, “We will not contest the decision.”
The lapses and missteps in his campaign have exposed Ballard to questions about whether he is qualified to be secretary of state.
“Really?” Ballard responded, pointing out that the Republican party officials took two-and-a-half hours to tally a little more than 1,600 delegate votes cast at their convention in the race for the secretary of state nomination.
“People make mistakes,” Ballard continued. “Mistakes do happen and these are very minimal mistakes in a large operation. Things happen. The individuals have been taken care of, everything’s been taken care of. We admitted it all.”
Ballard entered the race in March as an independent. A week later, he announced he was launching the new Lincoln Party.
On the campaign trail, Ballard said he is not mentioning the Lincoln Party and, instead, is focused on connecting with voters as an independent. Should he garner at least 2% of the votes cast in the November secretary of state’s race, he will then establish the Lincoln Party, he said, so future candidates will have the option of running under that label and not have to complete the arduous task independent face of gathering nearly 37,000 valid signatures just to get on the ballot.
“I don’t want to go down the party route,” Ballard said, adding his polling shows more than 50% of Hoosiers want a new political party. “We’re now trying to win this race. This is what we’re doing. We’re going to win this race. I’m not focused on the other stuff.”
Ballard said he was spurred to run as an independent because of what he sees as a discontent with the Democratic and Republican parties. Moreover, he said, both parties “vigorously” tried to talk him out of launching an independent bid. Ballard believes if he had not entered the race, polling would have shown Morales could have defeated Bayh in a two-way contest, so Engling would never have sought the GOP nomination.
Despite his outsider status, Ballard is confident that should he top the field in November, he will be able to work with Republican Gov. Mike Braun and the Republican and Democratic legislators in the Indiana General Assembly.
However, Ballard is pushing back on efforts to close the state’s primary elections, which could put him at odds with GOP lawmakers. The Republican Party is embracing closed primaries and Engling has said that ending the open primary system will be one of his top priorities if elected secretary of state.
“I’m hoping that everybody gets a sense of what’s best for the citizens and not best for the parties, which is worrying me right now,” Ballard said. “I think both parties look like they’re looking out for themselves and not too many people are looking out for the citizens, so that has to change.”
Dwight Adams, an editor and writer based in Indianapolis, edited this article. He is a former content editor, copy editor and digital producer at The Indianapolis Star and IndyStar.com, and worked as a planner for other newspapers, including the Louisville Courier Journal
The Indiana Citizen is a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed and engaged Hoosier citizens. We are operated by the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. For questions about the story, contact Marilyn Odendahl at marilyn.odendahl@indianacitizen.org
