An Indiana man has been charged with forging signatures on a nomination petition for a state house candidate.
Indiana County District Attorney Bob Manzi announced that 18-year-old Jonathan Carson Midkiff of Indiana is facing charges of forgery, tampering with records or identification, unsworn falsification and tampering with public records, all misdemeanors. A complaint was filed this month concerning a petition for Democrat Brian Doyle, who is running for his party’s nomination for State Representative, saying that ten signatures on the petition were forgeries. It was determined through an investigation by county detectives that seven of the ten people on the petition never signed it, two people who signed it lived outside of Indiana County since 2021 and one signer was incapacitated and could not sign the petition.
Manzi also said that since these were signatures on a petition, they did not count as votes, and there is no evidence of any fraudulent votes being made. Also, Manzi said that there was no evidence that Doyle knew of the forgeries.
It’s not known at this time if the removal of those ten signatures would result in him being disqualified for the election due to a lack of required signatures needed to be put on the ballot.
