Open Comments: Should politicans pay for special elections?

The timing of Souder’s resignation begs the poll question to the left and I feel, a place for you to sound off about this topic.

An article from Indiana News Center highlights the following:

Special Election will be costly

The Third Congressional District is compromised of eight counties. Each one must foot the bill for their portion of the special election.

Here’s the breakdown:

  • Allen: $275,000
  • Kosciusko: $50,000
  • Noble: $26,935
  • Steuben: $40,000
  • Elkhart: $35,000

Total: $426,935

Indiana’s NewsCenter has been unable to reach officials in Dekalb, LaGrange and Whitley counties by press time, but experts suggest the cost of the election could reach $1 million.

Costs include ballot and booklet printing, paying pole workers and transportation costs associated with moving voting machines.

-more-

So, this begs the question, given the nature of how this has played out, should politicians in situations similar to Mark Souder be required to help with the funding of these Special Elections?

Open comments will be accepted for 30 days. Comments may not appear immediately, so please wait at least 24 hours before sending those emails asking why…

All comments (except those of a spam nature) will be accepted, even those left anonymously or via a psuedonym.  The only ground rules are:

  1. Stay on topic
  2. No profanity
  3. Be respectful

Have at it!

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5 COMMENTS

  1. He knew what he was doing when he ran again. He’s made himself a laughing-stock at our expense – why shouldn’t we recoup part of that back? If nothing else, he should be barred from every running for public office agian.

  2. Of course he should pay! Yes, he knew what he was doing when he ran, lied to everyone, and has already wasted an enormous amount of taxpayers time and money. He could of manned up before the election and saved everyone such a headache. If this were a case where someone was physically ill and could not finish their term because of cancer, etc., then I would be more understanding and sympathetic. But this was just plain pathetic and stupid. I think he should also be paying back any campaign money that was given to him.

  3. No. However, when a special election needs to be held because our elected representative resigns for non-health reasons and does so right after a primary election….then I think that representative should be held accountable for the costs and pay for it out of left-over campaign funds and/or future congressional benefits or pay-outs.

  4. Is it fair to those who gave money to a candidate to have that money go to pay for a special election? They weren’t the ones that made the decision the candidate made? They trusted in him.

    I think in Souder’s case, it could be pretty fairly stated that no one saw this coming in his case. It wasn’t his supporters who made the bad decision – besides, doesn’t that not hold him accountable? It’s not like he can spend campaign contributions on himself if he isn’t running for an office, so why not either return those contributions or donate them for the special election costs?

  5. Souder should pay for it out of his own pocket. He caused this to happen. Its not fair to his contributors to fund the thing. He should man up and pay for it.

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