By Marilyn Odendahl for The Indiana Citizen.
Broadcast version by Joe Ulery for Indiana News Service reporting for the Indiana Citizen-Free Press Indiana-Public News Service Collaboration.

Hoosiers going to the polls in November will find a question on their ballots, asking if they want to amend the Indiana Constitution to revise the list of elected state officials who could succeed the governor.

The proposed amendment revises Article 5, Section 10, which outlines the process for succession if the sitting governor resigns, dies or becomes incapacitated. Namely, the lieutenant governor would be elevated to governor, but if the second-in-command also cannot fulfill the duties of the top office, then the Indiana General Assembly would have to convene within 48 hours to elect a governor from the same political party as the immediate past governor.

In the interim between the governor and lieutenant governor's offices becoming vacant and the legislature installing a new governor, the constitution provides a list of elected officials who would discharge the powers and duties of the governor. Sixth on that list is the state superintendent of public instruction, but since that position was switched from elected to appointed in 2021, Rep. J.D. Prescott, R-Union City, thought the state's top education official should no longer be in line to assume the governor's office.

"The question on the ballot is really clean-up language from when the state superintendent of public instruction was changed to the secretary of education," Prescott said. "Since we no longer have that state superintendent of public instruction, we're striking that language to allow parity with the other elected positions that are in that line of succession, so we do not have a path in place for an appointed position to be acting governor."

Unlike the proposed constitutional amendments the General Assembly sent to Hoosiers in the past, capping property taxes, prohibiting same-sex marriage, and protecting the right to hunt and fish, the succession amendment has not garnered any attention, let alone controversy. The amendment passed through the required two separate sessions of the legislature as a House Joint Resolution with no debate, no attempts to change the language and with only seven votes cast against it during the 2022 session.

Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, said the amendment was noncontroversial, noting in her 40 years of public advocacy, she had never heard anyone concerned about the succession for state governor. Still, she said, making this update to the constitution is important even though the superintendent is at the bottom of the succession list and likely would never get tapped to serve as governor.

"It probably does make sense to remove that position from the succession plan," Vaughn said. "But, I think Hoosiers would rather be asked constitutional questions that are a little bit more impactful to their everyday lives. It would be nice if we had the opportunity to weigh in directly, as voters, on issues like gerrymandering and abortion."

Wanting to clean up an oversight

Indiana did not have a governor who was elected to the office and served a complete term until Noah Noble, the fifth person to serve as the state leader, according to the Capitol & Washington blog. The four proceeding governors, including Indiana's first governor, Jonathan Jennings, either left office before their terms were over or assumed the office under legal succession. Noble was elected governor in December 1831 and remained in the office until December 1837, when his term ended.

Most recently, Indiana's constitutional succession process was enacted when Gov. Frank O'Bannon died in September 2003, during his second term in office. Then-Lt. Gov. Joe Kernan became governor and served until Mitch Daniels was elected and sworn into office in January 2005.

Under the Indiana Constitution, the line of succession for Indiana governor begins with the lieutenant governor. If both the governor and lieutenant governor positions are vacant, then the constitution offers an ordered list of elected officials who would be tapped to serve as governor.

The speaker of the Indiana House is at the top of the list, but if that office is vacant or if that individual is unable to perform the gubernatorial duties, the president pro tempore of the Indiana Senate would step in. If the Senate president's seat is vacant, then the state treasurer would take over, followed by the state auditor and then the secretary of state.

At the bottom of the list is the state superintendent of public instruction who would assume the duties of governor only if the five previous elected officials could not do so.

The superintendent was an elected position until the legislature passed the law abolishing the office in 2017 and created the Indiana secretary of education position. As part of that change, lawmakers made the secretary a position appointed by the governor.

Katie Jenner was appointed by Gov. Eric Holcomb as Indiana's first secretary of education in 2022.

Prescott said he discovered the language in the line of succession needed updating when he was reading through the Indiana Constitution. Every year, he sets aside time to read both the U.S. Constitution and the Indiana Constitution prior to Organization Day, the ceremonial start to the upcoming legislative session.

"We take an oath to uphold both the United States Constitution and the state of Indiana's constitution every year on Organization Day," Prescott said, noting he also encourages other legislators to read the constitutions. "Every word in our constitution, every word in statute, they're all there for a reason, so you have to pay attention to all those details."

Once he found what he considered to be a problem, Prescott said he sought input from House leaders to make them aware of the wording and to see if they had any thoughts or concerns about amending the provision. Leadership acknowledged, he said, that the succession language should be cleaned up.

Also, Prescott said, he did notify the Indiana secretary of education, before he introduced the resolution calling for the amendment. No one in the executive branch had any concerns, he said.

"Everyone that I talked to said, 'Yeah, it makes sense to strike that from the constitution, because (the superintendent's) position is no longer there,''' Prescott said. "It was kind of an oversight that we need to make sure we clean it up."

Hoosiers need to know before they vote

Although the amendment has not attracted much attention in the two years it rolled through the Statehouse, Prescott is confident that Hoosiers will learn about the proposed change to the state's constitution as Election Day get closer and more media outlets report on ballot issues. He said the key is educating voters about the rationale for the amendment, but he does not see a need for a "full out campaign" to raise public awareness.

Vaughn agreed that only state officials elected by the voters should be in line to succeed the governor. However, because this amendment "really has been flying under the radar screen," she said Hoosiers have to be informed and given time to think about the revision to the line of succession before they go to the polls. Already, she noted, Indiana has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the country and often voters say they do not participate in elections because they do not know enough about what is on the ballot to make an informed decision.

"I don't think we need to give Hoosiers yet another excuse to say, 'Well, I don't know enough. I'm just going to sit this one out,'" Vaughn said. "From the top of the ballot to the bottom, things like these constitutional questions, it's all important. We do a disservice to Hoosiers by not making them fully aware of each and every choice they're going to be asked to make on Election Day."


Marilyn Odendahl wrote this article for The Indiana Citizen.


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A new poll out this week shows nearly half of Wisconsin voters stopped talking about politics with someone because of disagreements over the presidential race.

Forty-six percent of voters in the latest Marquette Law School Poll said personal interactions were halted by differences of opinion about the candidates. That sentiment is higher than during the past two election cycles.

Voter Jane Gamez, from suburban Milwaukee, suggested there's a disrespectful tone that starts with the campaigns and then trickles down to voters themselves.

"I think that we jump to conclusions too soon on both sides," she said, "that we're not willing to discuss."

Gamez, a conservative who plans to vote for Donald Trump this fall, said her mind can be changed when there's a thoughtful approach to civic engagement. In the race for the White House, the Marquette poll showed Kamala Harris leading Trump by four percentage points. The head-to-head matchup results are consistent with the school's early September poll.

The survery also indicated there's a lot of enthusiasm among Wisconsin voters. Elsewhere in the Midwest, Sheronda Orridge of Minneapolis said she'll be voting for Harris in November. She said she isn't a big fan of politics, but her concerns about Trump are enough to motivate her to support the Democratic ticket.

"It's closer to my vision than what I see for Donald Trump," she said, "because he [doesn't] see people. He just sees himself."

Orridge suggested that preserving democracy is a major priority as she looks ahead to the election, and she views voting as a duty for people who are serious about enacting the political change they believe in.

Support for this reporting was provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.


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By Marilyn Odendahl for The Indiana Citizen.
Broadcast version by Joe Ulery for Indiana News Service reporting for the Indiana Citizen-Free Press Indiana-Public News Service Collaboration.

Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales' claim that more than 90% of eligible Hoosiers are registered to vote in the November election is being questioned by voter advocacy groups.

In a press release issued last week, Morales said that more than 4.7 million Hoosiers - 90.7% of those eligible - are registered to vote. He also touted his administration's work to promote voter registration by having "blanketed the state with voter registration efforts" and encouraged eligible Hoosiers to register.

However, nonprofit voter advocacy organizations say the true number of eligible voters in Indiana who are registered is much lower.

"That number is inflated because the state does a horrible job of routine (voter) list maintenance," Julie Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, said. "It's hard to say what the number is because we don't know how much of that (on the voter rolls) are bad names, are people who have moved who should have been deleted."

The 2023 Indiana Civic Health Index surveyed Hoosiers and found 66.5% of them were registered to vote in 2022, ranking Indiana 40^th in the country. Moreover, the index pointed to an analysis by the Tufts University Center for Information and Research on Civil Learning and Engagement for the 2022 midterm election that put Indiana sixth from the bottom in getting 18- to 24-year-olds registered to vote.

Also, the Civic Health Index stated secretary of state's January 2024 report of registered voters is an "over-statement" because the voter rolls contain individuals who have died, moved out-of-state or relocated within the state and did not have their name deleted in their old precinct.

Lindsey Eaton, spokeswoman for the secretary of state, disputed the contention that the registration percentage number is incorrect.

"We would not agree with that assessment that the figure is inflated," Eaton said in an email.

The day the press release was issued, Indiana's voter rolls included both active and inactive voters, according to Eaton. Inactive voters can still cast a ballot if they "verbally confirm the address on their registration," she said, although she did not specify whether the inactive voters would need to provide confirmation by the registration deadline or could do so after.

To calculate the percentage of eligible Hoosiers registered, the secretary of state divided the current number of voter registrations in Indiana, 4.78 million, by the state's 2023 eligible voting population from the U.S. Census, 5.27 million, Eaton said. The result is 90.7%.

"As the close of voter registration for the upcoming General Election approaches, the (secretary of state's) office wanted to point out the positive trend in voter registration and interest in the election," Eaton said in an email. "Robust voter registration activity is ongoing and the actual figures are changing every day."

Cleaning the voter rolls

Kelly Klevitsky, Indianapolis team leader for the national nonpartisan civic engagement nonprofit, HeadCount, has trouble believing more than 90% of Indiana's voters are registered. The number seems "quite high," she said, based on what she has seen this year through her voting promotion work and on the state's history of low voter registration and turnout stats.

''It's great to hear that it's 90%," Klevitsky said. "It's just quite a jump from the numbers in the past that I've been made aware of."

During the 2020 presidential election, 69.3% of Hoosiers were registered to vote and 61.0% voted, according to the 2023 Civic Health Index. Those numbers put Indiana among the bottom of all states for registration and turnout, 39^th and 46^th place, respectively.

To determine the true number of registered voters, Vaughn said, Indiana must clean the "dead weight" from its voter registration lists. However, she cautioned, the process for removing names from the rolls must be done legally.

Two times in recent years, Indiana has been sued for attempting to purge its registration lists using what Vaughn described as "second-hand information."

In 2018, the federal courts ruled the state was violating the National Voter Registration Act by employing a faulty matching system to identify voters who potentially were registered in more than one state and then removing those voters from the rolls without notifying them.

The Indiana General Assembly had required officials to use the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program to spot voters who possibly had multiple registrations. According to court documents, Crosscheck was very unreliable with one study by researchers from Stanford, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and Microsoft finding the system incorrectly flagged names as possible double voters more than 99% of the time.

In response to the court's ruling, the Indiana legislature amended the law in 2020 to replace Crosscheck with the Indiana Data Enhancement Association. The result, federal courts found, was "continued inconsistency with the NVRA."

"The state needs to get into the routine of doing this regularly," Vaughn said of cleaning the voter rolls, "but they've sort of passed on the responsibility to counties and counties just have other things that they want to spend money on and voter list maintenance doesn't seem to be high on their list of priorities."

According to Eaton, the state has spent the last decade cleaning the voter rolls.

"Over the past 10 years, the state of Indiana has been conducting a bi-annual voter list maintenance program to identify duplicate and obsolete registrations on the rolls (voters moved, died, etc.) and initiate the federally approved process to deactivate those registrations," Eaton said. "Removing a duplicate or obsolete voter registration does not equate to make an actual voter ineligible to vote in an election."

Excitement brewing for Election Day

Klevitsky and her team will have worked 50 different concerts and community events, primarily in Indianapolis, between Jan. 1 and Nov. 5. The HeadCount crew attends festivals and music performances where they offer to help attendees register to vote or check their voter registration status.

Once the Oct. 7 registration deadline passes, Klevitsky said HeadCount will pivot to helping people get prepared to vote. The organization will help Hoosiers find their polling places, learn where to go for information on the candidates and tell them the last day they can request a mail-in ballot.

Klevitsky said she and her team have been busier than in previous years. Many people are happy to see the HeadCount volunteers at concerts and other events, she said, and they seem to be more motivated to vote. The individuals who are not interested in the election, she said, will be more likely roused by having conversations with friends and family, rather than speaking to a stranger about voting.

For those who are uncertain about whether they want to vote, Klevitsky encourages them to at least get their names on the voter rolls.

"What I always like to remind folks is if you're not registered, you can't vote," Klevitsky said. "So, if you change your mind after the deadline to register and decide you do want to vote, you kind of missed your chance, so you might as well leave all your options open and make sure you're registered. So, you can use those last 30 days between registration and the actual election to continue to make your decisions and make up your mind."

To register to vote

Hoosiers who are U.S. citizens and will be 18 years or older on Nov. 5 can register to vote - or check their voter registration - by visiting the Indiana secretary of state's voter portal.


Marilyn Odendahl wrote this article for The Indiana Citizen.


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As Michigan voters prepare for the upcoming presidential election, state officials are urging them not to lose sight of vital local races, especially school boards in rural communities.

Down-ballot candidates play a crucial role in shaping the future of education and the overall direction of their communities. Statistics reveal rural Michigan school board elections are usually uncontested, with incumbents winning more than 80% of the time.

Trina Tocco, director of the Michigan Education Justice Coalition, said there are a number of competitive school board elections across the entire state.

"Maybe there's two seats and there might be three people running, or maybe there's a couple of full-term seats and then there's some partial-term seats," Tocco outlined. "Similarly to what we've seen with schoolteachers, which there's a lot of turnover."

Tocco pointed out voters can learn more about candidates by attending forums. A map of forum locations, provided by the Michigan Education Justice Coalition, helps residents find events in their local districts.

Candidate information is also available through Michigan Voter Information Center, which provides sample ballots, and the Michigan chapter of the League of Women Voters which offers voter guides.

Tocco noted her organization has collected candidate questionnaire responses, shedding light on how the hopefuls plan to tackle critical issues, such as how money is allocated within a district.

"We have actually requested all candidates across the state to go to our website and they complete a form," Tocco explained. "They tell us, what do they think about what's important around curriculum, around racial equity in our schools, mental health in our schools."

Tocco encouraged voters to tap into their local networks for insights on candidates. She added the best information sometimes comes from neighbors and fellow voters who know who is running and what they stand for.


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