Shillings Visits Hancock County

A plethora of statewide offices are up for election this year in Indiana, but perhaps none has garnered as much election and intrigue as the secretary of state’s race.

One of those candidates, Libertarian Lauri Shillings, appeared at the Hancock County 4-H Fair. Shillings is one of several candidates who is vying for the position, alongside Democrat Beau Bayh, Republican Max Engling (who also visited the fair) and former Indianapolis mayor Greg Ballard in an upstart independent campaign. Ballard’s campaign is awaiting verification of 37,000 signatures necessary to make it onto the ballot.

Shillings wants to let voters know that there are other options on the ballot for November, and wants to restore trust and integrity to the office.

“This state and these people are amazing, and they deserve someone who truly represents them,” she said.

The secretary of state’s office oversees the chartering of new businesses, oversight of state elections, registration of trademarks and enforcement of state laws and regulations to protect Hoosier investors.

Incumbent Republican Diego Morales will not be running for a second term, as he lost the GOP nomination to Max Engling, an aide to U.S. Sen. Jim Banks.

Shillings, the creative director for the University of Indianapolis, was first drawn to the Libertarian Party in the late 2010s after feeling disconnected with the two-party system.

“Instead of shouting into the wind and saying, ‘They’re doing it wrong, somebody should do something,’ I decided that I would be that someone,” she said. “I saw headline after headline of bad dealings, and I thought to myself, ‘There has to be a better way.’ So why not me?”

Shillings, who ran for Indiana’s fifth congressional district in 2024, comes from a marketing and advertising background, and she says this experience would bring a unique approach to the office. She said a major priority would be to update the secretary of state’s website, explaining she has had frustrations interfacing with the website and would revamp it to have documents and forms accessible in a more transparent manner.

Another major focus for her is restoring credibility in the position, saying “credibility in the office comes with transparency.” To this end, she wants to see a regular audit of the secretary of state’s office and to fully educate individuals about what the office does. “We need to let them know that election integrity is part of the role. Educate them about the election process, where they should vote, who is on their ballot and how that whole process works,” she said. “Those kinds of conversations are important.”

Shillings also notes that Indiana law allows the Secretary of State to develop post-election audits. In 2022, 10 counties in the state conducted post-election audits. Yet she feels the findings of such audits are not disseminated widely, and believes bringing the audit reports to the forefront of people’s attention would increase trust in the state’s elections.

Shillings claims other candidates are instilling fear in people to gain traction with voters; she points out there was only one case of voter fraud in the 2020 elections.

“All this talk and rhetoric about that is just fearmongering to make people think that it is ‘us against them,’ when it in fact is a system that is flawed,” she said. “They need to understand how this works and why, because they are not educated about it.”

Shillings says the state’s voter ID laws are sufficient and more restrictions are not needed. She also criticizes the proposed Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. This act, proposed in Congress and prioritized by President Donald Trump, would require documentary proof of citizenship at time of voter registration. Shillings argues the act would essentially be a poll tax, saying her mom would not be able to find her birth certificate and prove her citizenship.

For the last 32 years, Libertarians have sustained ballot access by receiving over 2% of votes in Indiana secretary of state elections, though this year’s race could be the toughest yet for the Libertarians to keep that access as it could potentially become a four-person race. Shillings sharply criticized Ballard’s entry into the race, saying it was a cloak for him to start a new political party.

“It’s important for the state of Indiana to have those options, because the Libertarian Party already has these platform and policy planks that are known, understandable and for the people of Indiana,” she said. “… People deserve choices on their ballot. It brings the best candidates forward when doing this work. It forces candidates to become more accountable.”

She said her campaign is not a political stepping stone, but is about working hard for Hoosiers.

“I’m doing this because I give a damn about this job,” she said. “It’s a service for me. It’s about doing the work for the people of Indiana, and it’s about providing services that are important and integral. I’m here to do this job for the next four years.”

~ by Grayson Joslin | Daily Reporter | June 30th, 2026