A longtime Democratic incumbent is seeking to complete his last four years as Lake County clerk while a Republican candidate is campaigning for her first county office in this year’s race.
Incumbent Mike Brown, a Democrat, is being challenged by Leslie Dallner, a Republican, for Lake County Circuit Court Clerk — a role that oversees filings for various judgments, land titles, certain legal proceedings, court orders and serves as a member of county election board.
Brown, of Gary, has worked 22 years as an elected official, with this year marking his 13th year as the Lake County Clerk. The marketing and accounting Ivy Tech graduate has worked for the Hoosier Lottery, served as chief deputy administrator for the Lake County Coroner’s Office, served on the Gary City council and was twice elected Lake County Recorder in 2004 and 2008.
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Brown said on top of his years in public service, he and his team at the clerk’s office have created community programs, implemented new technology and streamlined the department.
“This is the reason why I’m the right person for the job,” Brown said. “In the next four years as technology moves forward, we will move forward with it and embrace it so we can serve every single person that either comes through our doors, makes a phone call, or goes through our Odyssey Quest system more efficiently. I believe this has been my calling. I’m living my purpose and I’m excited about how voters have been kind enough to give me the opportunity to serve, and I’m asking them to give me one more chance to do that. Because as long as I’m in these positions, I’m going to work hard. I’m only as good as the people around me, and I have surrounded myself with the best people that I can have, and I’m proud of them. I’m proud to work with them and I want us to continue so when I hand the keys over in 2030, they’ll be good hands.”
In 2009, Brown became Lake County clerk via caucus to fill out the remainder of the term for a former clerk who was leaving to fill the county coroner’s seat. Brown served in the role until 2018, when he was chosen at a caucus to serve on the Gary City Council to fill the seat of former councilwoman Ragen Hatcher, now a state representative.
In August 2022, Brown was again elected as Lake County Clerk. Due to term limits, Brown can only serve four more years in the position.
Since 2022, Brown said they have launched several programs, including a machine that can translate up to 130 languages at every office that the county clerk serves. He also said the team in the clerk’s office has been instrumental in budgeting and saving money for the county.
“We’re very proactive,” Brown said. “A lot of these ideas come from our staff. Whether it’s a frontline worker, a manager, or the executive team bringing ideas, we sit down and find out, how can we take these ideas and implement them?”
He said they have also developed internship programs, job recruitment outreach, expungement programs, educational visits to local schools, partnerships with mental health organizations and built collaborations with several other committees.
Brown said the Lake County Clerk’s Office, election board members and election staff members from both political parties have upheld strong election integrity, and that the voting machines and vote-recording process have been safeguarded.
Dallner, of Hobart, is a financial analyst with more than 25 years of experience in the corporate sector with expertise in accounting. A business graduate of Indiana University Northwest, she has served as lead accountant on multiple software transition projects and has worked with internal and external audit teams in large firms.
Her platform is the “Three T’s,” which she describes as “transparency, technology, and transformation.”
“Leadership is a role of serving, and serving is very important because you represent the people around you,” Dallner said. “And you have to do what they want, and the only way to do that is to get involved with them to find out what changes that they want. And that’s how you serve ‘We, the People,’ and that’s how you keep integrity and transparency and trustworthiness in the government. When you’re communicating directly with the people, then you base your decisions on what it is that they want.”
Dallner said she is committed to reducing waste, maintaining a balanced budget, updating technology and using cross-training programs to improve efficiency. If elected, she said she plans to develop fillable electronic forms for document requests submitted by email.
Dallner said she felt motivated to run for office to improve election security. If elected, she plans to do an audit of voter rolls to ensure addresses have been updated and that post office boxes are not being used for voter registration. Maintaining voter registrations usually falls under the purview of the Board of Elections and Voter Registration.
After serving as an election judge, Dallner said she filed a complaint alleging violations of Indiana election law “but nothing was done about it.”
” … no one’s ever been prosecuted with any violation of election law in the past 40 years in Lake County and it’s happening,” Dallner said.
Dallner said she became involved in politics starting with the Highland GOP’s legislative committee and then ran for state representative in 2024 against Ragen Hatcher. Since then she has worked to reach voters in a grassroots effort.
“I think in my one-on-one conversation, it’s letting people know what a lot of people do not know: that Lake County was (unauditable),” Dallner said.
In December 2024, Lake County was removed from the State Board of Accounts’ unauditable list for its 2022 budget, but the followup audit report found persistent issues with payroll management, the Lake County Sheriff’s salary, and the Lake County Jail’s commissary fund, according to Post-Tribune archives.
In 2023, a State Board of Accounts audit found that employees from the Lake County Auditor’s Office miscalculated the Property Tax Replacement Credit, overstating by about $40 million, according to Post-Tribune archives. As a result, taxpayers are going to pay about 4% more, spread out across the taxpayer base, in property taxes because the credit will be reduced.
“A lot of people don’t know that the county lost an $18 million state credit that was supposed to be applied to our property taxes in Lake County in 2025. It vanished. Nobody knows where it’s at. And that affects our property taxes and our tax dollars,” Dallner said. “And that isn’t necessarily connected to the Lake County Clerk’s office, but it gives an impression that the Lake County government isn’t running like they should be running. And we all have to work together. The clerk’s office has to work with the recorder’s office. They have to work with the auditor and the treasurer. And so that affects everyone, regardless.”
Unauditable means there is not enough information for the state to complete its audit of a governmental entity, according to Post-Tribune archives. The law defining “unauditable” language was passed by the Indiana General Assembly during the 2023 session.
Brown said the clerk’s office has been given complete clearance for 2024 and 2025 from the State Board of Accounts.
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“We’re very fiscally responsible,” Brown said. “We don’t waste money and we work within the budget that the county has given us. And I’m also proud to say the State Board of Accounts, of the last two years in 2024 and 2025, have found no errors in the way we’ve done business. …These last four years, we’ve worked tirelessly. That’s a tribute to the staff, to the frontline workers who work with us, our managers, our supervisors, our coordinators and the training the states provide for us.”
Anna Ortiz is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.