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.


get more stories like this via email

Wisconsinites overwhelmingly voted 'yes' on a record number of school funding measures, according to a new Wisconsin Policy Forum study. The appeals essentially asked voters to increase their own property taxes to fund school operations across the state. Voters favored a record number 169 referendums, authorizing a record total of $4.4 billion in new funding for 145 school districts.

Denise Gaumer Hutchison, Northwest regional organizer with the Wisconsin Public Education Network, said districts are being forced to take their needs to the ballot box to fund gaps between prioritizing students and overdue bills.

"The first responsibility of our public schools across the state is to educate children and to take care of the kids and the families they serve, every single day," she said. "So, that means any available funds that public schools have they put toward educating children. And so, if that means a boiler has to be patched rather than replaced, that's what they're going to do."

Almost half of the state's 421 school districts passed a referendum in April or November. Hutchison blames the state for not adequately funding school priorities, from building maintenance, to student mental-health services. The state superintendent announced last week the proposed 2025-27 budget would include $4 billion more in spending for public schools.

Despite 78% of the ballot measures passing, Hutchson said the districts where voters turned them down are in dire need of support to keep their doors open. Regardless of whether taxpayers have children in public schools, she says, the focus should be on providing every Wisconsin student with a quality education.

"I want their experience in public schools to be as awesome as my 25 and 26-year-old's were. I want them to get to be able to participate in sports, in theater, in drama and DECA, and learn about the history of our state and our country, and think about what our state and our country can be," she continued.

The study found factors like inflation outpacing the state allocated per-student revenue limits, the loss of pandemic aid and staff competition in a tight labor market are all factors that contributed to the record number of referendums.


get more stories like this via email

The presidential vote was close in Nevada and with the results in, local organizations leaning more progressive believe the re-election of Donald Trump could put much of the progress made in the Silver State in jeopardy.

Shelbie Swartz, executive director of Battle Born Progress, said Nevadans should take Trump's campaign promises seriously. She called on leaders in Carson City and in Congress to "stand up for their constituents," whom she argued a Trump administration could target, from immigrants to people who identify as transgender.

"If your values change based on polling, if your willingness to fight for the dignity of all Nevadans does not extend to our transgender siblings, then those are not values," Swartz contended. "They're talking points drafted in pencil."

Swartz stressed she has faith in the Nevada Legislature to pass bills to uphold and protect the rights of Nevadans but added the biggest challenge will be seeing what can make it across Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo's desk. Last year, Lombardo, who endorsed Donald Trump, vetoed a record 75 bills passed by the Legislature's Democratic majority.

Trump campaigned on the idea of mass deportations and has doubled down on the threat since his win.

Leo Murrieta, executive director of the group Make the Road Action Nevada, said it is time for leaders who are ready to move beyond what he calls "fear-based policies," to advocate instead for immigration reform, including clearer, earned pathways to citizenship.

"It is time for leaders to see our community as an integral part of this country's fabric, not just a political talking point," Murrieta argued. "We are standing united with many other groups ready to resist any of the policies and any of the other threats that we're certainly going to face."

A new report from the American Immigration Council found a one-time mass deportation operation would cost the United States at least $315 billion to remove more than 13 million people.

California good governance experts are warning the expansion of presidential power under a second Trump administration could cast aside expertise and the public good to further purely political aims.

Over the past week, President-elect Donald Trump has nominated multiple candidates known more for their personal support for him than for relevant expertise.

Bill Resh, associate professor of public policy at the University of Southern California, said Trump appears to be following the blueprint set by Project 2025.

"Project 2025 puts into place principles such as loyalty, first and foremost, to the President as a criterion for placement into these agencies, and often with the intention of undermining those missions."

Supporters of President-elect Trump say voters have given him a mandate to govern as he sees fit. So far, he has nominated people strongly aligned with the oil industry to run the U.S. Interior Department and be Energy Secretary. He has nominated a climate change skeptic to run the Environmental Protection Agency, a television host with no executive experience as Defense Secretary, an election denier for Attorney General and a vaccine skeptic to run the Department of Health and Human Services.

Resh noted Trump has already suggested using recess appointments to avoid what could be bruising confirmation hearings for some of his nominees.

"His stars are aligned to consolidate executive power and bring what used to be either quasi- or fully independent agencies, that were not subject to political whims, to bring those agencies to heel toward his policy preferences," Resh contended.

This year, the U.S. Supreme Court found presidents cannot be prosecuted for most actions in office. And come January, both houses of Congress will be controlled by allies of President-elect Trump.