06/23/2026
🚨Why Max Engling’s Election Agenda Should Concern Every Hoosier
By Kory Amyx
Max Engling wants to be Indiana’s next Secretary of State, and according to his website, he plans to get there by pursuing what he calls “Conservative election reforms” while promising “Zero Compromise.” One of the most prominent slogans on his campaign website is “Protecting Our Conservative Standards.”
Honestly, I think that phrase alone should make Hoosiers pause.
The Secretary of State is not supposed to protect conservative standards. They are not supposed to protect progressive standards, Democratic standards, Republican standards, libertarian standards, or any other political ideology. Their responsibility is to protect elections, maintain public trust in the process, and ensure every eligible Hoosier has access to the ballot box. The office is supposed to function as an impartial referee, not as an advocate for one political team over another.
Engling says he wants to ensure that only citizens can vote in Indiana elections. That sounds reasonable until you realize that only citizens can already vote in Indiana elections. Federal law prohibits non-citizens from voting in federal elections, Indiana law requires voters to affirm under penalty of perjury that they are eligible, and documented cases of non-citizen voting in Indiana are extraordinarily rare. So I have to ask: what problem are we trying to solve?
Because we’ve seen this playbook before. Politicians point to isolated incidents, imply widespread fraud, and then propose additional requirements that mostly impact people who already have the legal right to vote. Naturalized citizens, elderly voters, married women whose names have changed, college students, military families who move frequently, and people who simply don’t have easy access to decades-old paperwork often end up paying the price. Government databases make mistakes. Election officials make mistakes. Human beings make mistakes. Eligible voters shouldn’t lose their voice because politicians want to campaign against a problem they can’t demonstrate exists in meaningful numbers.
Then there is Engling’s proposal to close Indiana’s primaries.
As someone who spent months traveling throughout Indiana talking with voters during my congressional campaign, this proposal worries me far more than anything else on his website.
Indiana is, for all practical purposes, a one-party state. Republicans have controlled the Governor’s office for two decades. They hold supermajorities in the House and Senate. They control nearly every statewide office and draw legislative maps that make many districts effectively noncompetitive. In a large number of races, whoever wins the Republican primary wins the seat. The general election is little more than a formality.
So what exactly happens when you close primaries?
You tell independents they don’t matter.
You tell veterans who left the Republican Party after January 6 that they don’t matter.
You tell moderate Republicans who don’t feel represented by the most ideological wing of their party that they don’t matter.
You tell Democrats who happen to live in deep red districts that they don’t matter.
You tell politically homeless Hoosiers that they can pay taxes, follow the laws, and live under decisions made by elected officials, but they shouldn’t have a meaningful say in selecting those officials.
How does that strengthen democracy?
How does reducing participation increase confidence in elections?
How does limiting who can vote in the election that actually decides most races in Indiana make government more representative?
It doesn’t.
It empowers political parties while weakening voters.
Engling also proposes creating a portal that would allow citizens to report suspected election issues directly. Transparency is important, and legitimate concerns should absolutely be investigated. But we don’t live in a political environment where people calmly disagree and accept election outcomes anymore.
We live in an era where election workers have received death threats. We live in an era where social media rumors spread faster than facts. We live in an era where some people are willing to believe almost anything if it confirms their existing worldview.
Do we really need another mechanism that could be used to file frivolous complaints against poll workers, accuse neighbors of voting illegally, or amplify conspiracy theories? Election workers are already difficult to recruit and retain. Why would we create yet another avenue for harassment and intimidation?
And perhaps what concerns me most isn’t even a specific policy proposal. It’s the underlying philosophy.
“Protecting Our Conservative Standards.”
That statement suggests that election administration should be guided by ideology rather than neutrality. It suggests that the person overseeing elections should view themselves as protecting one political perspective instead of protecting every Hoosier’s constitutional rights equally.
I don’t want a Democratic Secretary of State who promises to protect progressive standards.
I don’t want a Republican Secretary of State who promises to protect conservative standards.
I want a Secretary of State who protects voters.
Period.
Indiana already ranks near the bottom nationally in voter participation. We don’t have an epidemic of too many people voting. We have a problem with too many people believing their vote doesn’t matter. We should be discussing automatic voter registration, expanding early voting opportunities, creating independent redistricting commissions, improving civic education, and finding ways to encourage participation among younger voters.
Instead, we’re talking about closing primaries, adding new barriers, and framing election administration as an ideological project.
Maybe Max Engling genuinely believes these proposals would improve Indiana’s elections. He has every right to make that argument. But Hoosiers should think carefully about what it means when someone running to oversee elections campaigns on protecting a political ideology with “Zero Compromise.”
Because voting rights don’t belong to conservatives.
They don’t belong to liberals.
They don’t belong to political parties.
They belong to Hoosiers.
And every time we make participation more difficult, every time we narrow who gets a meaningful voice in choosing their leaders, and every time we allow ideology to creep into the administration of elections, we move a little further away from the democracy we’re supposed to be protecting.
