October 14, 2022
Ken de la Bastide
ANDERSON — A Democrat has not been elected Indiana’s secretary of state since 1988, but Destiny Wells is hoping to break that trend.
Wells is running for the office that oversees the election process in Indiana against Republican Diego Morales and Libertarian Jeffrey Maurer.
Controversy has followed Morales since he secured the GOP nomination and declined to participate in a League of Women Voters debate earlier this week.
Wells has served in the military for 19 years and has worked as an attorney in the Indiana attorney general’s office and for the city of Indianapolis.
“I never ran for office before,” Wells said during an interview with The Herald Bulletin. “It was kind of spur of the moment.
“Following the 2016 election, I was alarmed at the change of leadership and style and that were identifying themselves with political figures,” she said of former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
Wells decided to get involved in the political process and started networking within the Democrat party.
“During what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, a law school classmate stormed the Capitol,” she said. “It kept me looking at election laws.”
Wells said she is concerned about the direction of the state and country and the involvement of attorneys general in the election process.
She has called on Morales to end his involvement with the America First Secretary of State Coalition, which Wells contends will make drastic changes in the election process.
“There is not any more important race this year than the secretary of state,” Wells said. “There is a viable national security threat. That’s why I’m running — to safeguard democracy.”
She said if she’s elected, one of her goals is to extend voting hours on Election Day.
Wells said only Indiana and Kentucky close their polls at 6 p.m. She would like to see the hours extended to 9 p.m.
“The lack of voter confidence is an issue we have created,” she said of low voter turnout. “It’s a result of irresponsible campaigning. A lot of it involves educating the voters.”
Mauer, during a debate, said he wants to do a 92-county audit of the election process and didn’t want to expand or restrict voting.
“I’m confident we can win,” Wells said. “People are tired of being under one-party rule in Indiana. We’re not functioning as a democracy.”
She said a Democrat winning the secretary of state’s office would be a good place to start to return balance to the state because it’s an administrative, rather than legislative, position.
Wells said Indiana Democrats are getting a boost this year as a result of the Republican Party-controlled legislative changes in the state’s abortion law.
“That has strengthened the position of the party,” she said. “The Republicans are going so far to the right.”