Failed 2024 Indiana 5th District Republican primary candidate Larry Savage was arrested Tuesday morning and charged with destroying/misplacing a ballot and theft after he swiped two test ballots during a demonstration by the Madison County clerk’s office of how tabulators work, Fox 59 reports.

The dumbassery began on October 3rd, when Savage, a local precinct committeeman, joined a tour of other party officials and regular voters to watch the county’s tabulators do their work processing ballots, all of which were clearly marked “test.” Despite this, they’re still official ballots for the purposes of tracking and counting – a detail Savage was clearly informed of in footage of the incident. After that Savage is seen looking around the room before stuffing two of the ballots into his sweatshirt. Then he leans over and says “fucked up count” to a woman in the room.

Savage then left and from his car joined the Facebook livestream of the event, writing “3 ballots short!!! lol” and “Dontvtake [sic] anything,” in the comments. Fast forward to Tuesday when cops showed up at Savage’s door and, before they could even read him his rights and the warrant, he said “You talking about the ballot the lady told me I could take. I got the paper you’re talking about. I just rolled it up and put it in my pocket. I wasn’t trying to steal from nobody,” and blaming county officials. “This is all political bullshit is all it is… I thought they were fake fucking ballots”

In a statement to Fox 59 Savage said “At no time did I actually think that was a real ballot. I didn’t mean to hurt anybody. And if I did, I’m sorry. I’m just trying to fight for our county.”