The Indiana Supreme Court on Thursday overturned a recount result that had handed a Republican state Senate primary victory to Trump-backed challenger Paula Copenhaver, instead declaring incumbent state Sen. Spencer Deery the winner by just three votes.
The ruling ends a months-long dispute over six ballots cast for Deery that had been rejected during a statewide recount because they were missing required county clerk stamps or signatures.
The court ordered election officials to certify Deery with 6,335 votes and Copenhaver with 6,332, restoring the same three-vote margin that separated the candidates immediately after the May 5 Republican primary.
A majority of the five-member court concluded that the six disputed ballots were legally countable because the defects were caused by election officials rather than the voters themselves.
Indiana law provides that otherwise valid ballots can still be counted when an election officer’s action or failure to act creates the defect, unless there is evidence of fraud, tampering or misconduct affecting the ballot’s integrity.
No evidence of such wrongdoing involving the six ballots was established during the recount proceedings.
The Indiana Recount Commission had reached a different conclusion in August.
The three-member panel, chaired by Republican Secretary of State Diego Morales and also including Republican Paul Mullin and Democrat Michael Claytor, voted 2-1 to exclude the six ballots.
Four of the disputed ballots had been submitted by mail and two through early in-person voting.
Their exclusion flipped the outcome, giving Copenhaver 6,332 votes to Deery’s 6,329 and making her the certified Republican nominee for Senate District 23.
Deery appealed, arguing that voters should not lose their votes because election workers failed to place the required stamps or signatures on ballots that had otherwise been properly cast.
The Indiana Supreme Court intervened Sept. 3 by temporarily blocking the distribution of general-election ballots naming either candidate while the justices reviewed the dispute.
The court heard oral arguments Thursday morning and issued its final order roughly three hours later, setting aside the Recount Commission’s decision and directing the Indiana Election Commission to recertify Deery as the Republican nominee.
The extraordinarily close contest had attracted national attention because Copenhaver was endorsed by President Donald Trump.
Trump backed Copenhaver after Deery opposed a mid-decade congressional redistricting proposal promoted by the president and other Republicans seeking new congressional boundaries before the 2026 midterms, per Trending Politics.
Trump had described Copenhaver as a “MAGA Warrior” while criticizing Deery over his redistricting vote.
The District 23 race was one of several Indiana Republican primaries in which Trump-backed challengers targeted GOP state senators who had opposed the proposed congressional map.
Several of those incumbents lost their May primaries, making Deery’s contest one of the closest and last unresolved races arising from that intraparty fight.
Copenhaver requested the recount after preliminary results initially showed Deery leading by three votes.
Her attorney argued before the court that clerk seals and signatures serve an important role in authenticating absentee ballots and protecting the integrity of elections.
Deery’s attorneys countered that the Recount Commission improperly penalized voters for mistakes committed by election workers and called the commission’s decision an abuse of discretion.
Thursday’s ruling means Copenhaver’s recount victory is void and Deery will appear as the Republican nominee for Indiana Senate District 23 in November.
The decision also resolves the race shortly before Indiana counties must begin sending absentee ballots, a deadline that had increased pressure on the court to settle the dispute quickly.
