In an unprecedented decision from the county election board, an Evansville city council candidate has been fined for filing an improper campaign finance report two-and-a-half years ago.
The board voted unanimously to fine Alex Schmitt the maximum amount allowed under state law.
Schmitt has to pay $100 for a mandatory campaign finance report he filed incorrectly in January 2017 after losing the Republican primary for Vanderburgh County Commissioner.
He was asked at that time to file an amended report to address several discrepancies.
He didn’t until June of this year after he was contacted by a Courier and Press reporter, who was working on a story about the supervision of campaign finance reports.
According to the ammended document, Schmitt's campaign received $4,000 more in contributions than was previously reported.
Maureen Mattingly, an Evansville resident, filed a complaint with the election board after reading that story.
During a county election board meeting Monday, Schmitt admitted under oath that his campaign finance report was inaccurate.
He said he didn’t have access to his full financial records and wasn’t able to get in touch with his campaign treasurer
Schmitt’s running for office again in the fall, this time for an at-large city council seat.
He says there won’t be another inaccurate report.
“I can promise that. There was one single report over the last three-and-a-half years that was defective," Schmitt says.
The election board is allowed to levy fines in certain scenarious but generally chooses not to. The auditor's office now has to create a new line item in county records to receive the funds because there's currently not an account set aside for fines from the election board.