Molter, J.
No candidate ran in the 2023 Republican primary election for the District 6 seat on the Columbus City Council, so the Bartholomew County Republican Party held a caucus to choose its general election nominee. The caucus chose Joseph Foyst. But the chairman of the Bartholomew County Democratic Party—Ross Thomas—sued for a declaratory judgment that Foyst was ineligible to appear on the ballot because, Thomas claimed, the Republican Party missed a statutory deadline for choosing its nominee. Thomas’s suit was not resolved before the election, which Foyst won, and after the election, the Bartholomew Circuit Court denied Thomas’s claim. But the Court of Appeals reversed, agreeing that the Republican Party missed the deadline; holding that Foyst’s candidacy was therefore void ab initio; and remanding with instructions to declare Bryan Muñoz—the second-place finisher—winner of the council seat.
Today we grant transfer and remand to the circuit court to dismiss the case as moot. The Indiana General Assembly created two avenues for election disputes, each with distinct requirements—one avenue for preelection candidacy “challenges” to determine who can be on the ballot, and another avenue for election “contests” to determine who should be declared the winner. Thomas did not file, and expressly disclaimed, an election contest. Yet that is the only candidacy dispute with a statutory remedy of declaring the second-place finisher the winner when the first-place finisher’s nomination was statutorily invalid. Because Thomas instead brought only a pre-election challenge, his only requested relief was to prohibit Foyst from appearing on the ballot. But the election is over, and Foyst already appeared on the ballot, so Thomas’s request is moot.
In short, before Thomas can prevail upon the courts to set aside election results based on a claim that the rival political party misstepped when nominating its candidate, Thomas must himself take the statutorily required steps for an election contest.
…
Thomas argues that the Bartholomew County Republican Party did not timely fill its candidate vacancy, and, as a result, we should set aside the election results and declare the second-place finisher the winner. We decline to do so. As we explain below, we first confirm that Thomas has standing to sue on behalf of the Bartholomew County Democratic Party. But we next conclude that the only claim he preserved in the circuit court is now moot.
That is because Thomas filed his amended complaint before the election, and he persisted only with a request for a declaration that Foyst should not appear on the general election ballot. Thomas never filed an election contest to set aside the election results. But now that the election is over and Foyst already appeared on the ballot, Thomas’s request to prevent Foyst’s name from appearing on the ballot is moot. And Thomas cannot, on appeal, request different relief—to set aside the election results—without first following the statutory requirements for that claim.
I. Thomas has standing to pursue his claim.
….
The legislature has recognized that political parties have a direct stake in many election rules and resulting disputes, so in many instances throughout the election code it has authorized the parties, through their chairs, to file administrative challenges and to sue in court. See, e.g., I.C. § 3-8-1-2(d) (authorizing a pre-election challenge by a county chair of a major political party in which the election district is located to question the eligibility of a candidate to seek office); I.C. § 3-12-8-1(c) (authorizing the county party chair to file an election contest in the event that party’s candidate declines to file a post-election contest); I.C. § 3-6-5-34 (authorizing party chairs to seek judicial review of county election board decisions). All litigants in this dispute agree that, consistent with our Constitution’s separation of powers, the legislature authorized the Bartholomew County Democratic Party—through its chair—to file a preelection challenge to Foyst’s appearance on the ballot, to seek judicial review of the county election board’s decisions, and to file a post-election contest to set aside the election results.
But the captions for Thomas’s appellate filings read as if he sued in his individual capacity on his own behalf rather than on behalf of the party. And he may not have standing to sue on his own behalf because his mere personal disappointment with the election outcome is not the sort of particularized injury our constitution requires for standing…
At oral argument, Thomas clarified that he was suing not on his own behalf but on behalf of the Bartholomew County Democratic Party in his capacity as party chairman, just as the Indiana Code authorizes. That clarification is consistent with the caption on his amended complaint, which says that he is suing “in his capacity as Chairman of the Bartholomew County Democratic Party.”…
Having confirmed that standing is proper here, we turn to whether there remains a live dispute for us to resolve.
II. Thomas’s claim that Foyst cannot appear on the ballot is moot.
The legislature created two avenues for disputing a person’s candidacy: an Article 8 pre-election “challenge” and an Article 12 election “contest.” See White v. Ind. Democratic Party ex rel. Parker, 963 N.E.2d 481, 485 (Ind. 2012). As the distinct labels indicate, these are two distinct paths with unique requirements and results. Article 8 challenges determine who should appear on the ballot. They begin with statutorily-required allegations made to administrative bodies like county election boards, I.C. § 3-8-1-2, and those administrative decisions are subject to judicial review, I.C. § 3-6-5-34. Article 12 contests determine the election results. For local offices, they begin with a verified petition containing statutorily-required information filed in court, I.C. § 3-12-8-5, and they are subject to statutorily-required hearing procedures, see I.C. § 3-12-8-17. A successful candidacy challenge can remove a name from the ballot; a successful election contest can set aside the election results and declare a second-place finisher the winner. Thomas pursued the first avenue, but his request for a declaration that Foyst cannot appear on the ballot was moot after Foyst won the election, and Thomas explicitly disclaimed an Article 12 election contest, which is the only way to set aside election results. We must therefore remand to the circuit court to dismiss the case as moot.
A. Thomas filed a pre-election challenge.
….
But even assuming Thomas can substitute a declaratory judgment action for judicial review, now that the election is over, Thomas’s request to declare that Foyst cannot appear on the ballot is moot. Foyst already appeared on the ballot, so the courts can no longer provide Thomas the relief he requested…
….
And it makes no difference that Thomas’s only remaining request was merely for declaratory relief because “[a] court may not, in general, consider a request for declaratory judgment if the case is moot or calls merely for an advisory opinion.” Bookwalter v. Ind. Election Comm’n, 209 N.E.3d 438, 443 (Ind. Ct. App. 2023), trans. denied. Thomas’s claim must therefore be dismissed as moot. See Lawrance, 579 N.E.2d at 37 (“When the concrete controversy at issue in a case has been ended or settled, or in some manner disposed of, so as to render it unnecessary to decide the question involved, the case will be dismissed.” (quotations omitted)).
That is not to say Thomas had no procedural means to challenge the election results based on his claim that Foyst’s candidacy was invalid. Thomas did have that option; he just chose not to pursue it, which we discuss next.
B. Thomas did not file an election contest.
The only statutory authority for a court to set aside election results is through an election contest under Title 3, Article 12. In the case of an election for local office, Article 12 provides that remedy for a candidate or the county chairman of that candidate’s political party who successfully contests “the nomination or election of a candidate” by filing a contest within seventeen days after election day. I.C. § 3-12-8-1(c); see also I.C. § 3- 12-8-5.
In Thomas’s case, he still could have disputed Foyst’s nomination—not just his election—after the Article 8 challenge deadline by filing a verified petition alleging, among other statutorily-required information, that “[t]he person declared nominated or elected does not comply with a specific constitutional or statutory requirement . . . applicable to the candidate for the office.” I.C. § 3-12-8-6(a)(3)(A). At that point, once an election contest is filed with the circuit court clerk, it becomes the responsibility of the circuit court judge to follow statutory hearing procedures and to decide the dispute. I.C. § 3-12-8-17(a), (b). And if the court finds that the challenged candidate is ineligible, the statute instructs the court to provide the extraordinary remedy of setting aside the election results to “declare as elected or nominated the qualified candidate who received the highest number of votes and render judgment accordingly.” I.C. § 3-12-8-17(c) (emphasis added); see also Kite v. Curlin, 139 N.E.3d 1113 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019) (overturing an election through an Article 12 election contest where the initially victorious school board candidate did not meet the residency requirement), trans. denied. But this route was only open until seventeen days after the general election, and Thomas not only declined to file an election contest, he expressly disavowed such a contest.
….
In sum, Thomas has never identified any provisions in Article 12 or any other statutory basis authorizing the courts to overturn the election based on his challenge—not in his amended complaint, not in his arguments to the trial court, not in his briefing to the Court of Appeals or our Court, nor at oral argument in our Court. And this “Court has long held that statutes providing for contesting elections should be liberally construed in order that the will of the people in the choice of public officers may not be defeated by any merely formal or technical objections.” Pabey, 816 N.E.2d at 1148 (quotations omitted). Thomas is asking us to do the opposite—to forgive his noncompliance with the statutes governing election contests and set aside the election results based on his claim that the rival political party missed a statutory deadline in its nomination process. Because neither the election code nor our case law permits us to do so, we decline his request.
Conclusion
For these reasons, we vacate the judgment and remand to the circuit court with the instruction to dismiss Thomas’s case as moot.
Rush, C.J., and Massa and Slaughter, JJ., concur. Goff, J., concurs in part and dissents in part with separate opinion.
Goff, J., concurring in part, dissenting in part.
In this case involving a Columbus City Council election, I would exercise judicial restraint and deny transfer because intervening amendments to the election code by our General Assembly make the issue here unlikely to reoccur. On the merits, I take no issue with the Court’s holding on standing but part ways in the Court’s holding that Ross Thomas’s claim is moot.
I. Amendments to the election code after the election make this case inappropriate for transfer.
….
II. Thomas’s challenge to Foyst’s eligibility is not moot.
The Court opines that, because Thomas brought a pre-election challenge, “his only requested relief was to prohibit Foyst from appearing on the ballot.” Ante, at 2. But because the election is over, and because Foyst already appeared on the ballot, the Court concludes that “Thomas’s request is moot.” Id.
I disagree.
….