Indiana Cleaning Up Its Voter Rolls

Indiana is mailing postcards to more than 700,000 Hoosiers as it begins the second phase of an effort to clean up its voter rolls.  This phase begins a process that can end with voters being removed from the registration list.

Earlier this year, the Secretary of State’s office sent postcards to every Hoosier on the active voter list.  About 727,000 postcards were sent back as undeliverable – that’s about 16 percent of the total voter lists.  A second round of now-forwardable postcards has been sent out – and this time, Secretary of State Connie Lawson says the state wants voters to respond, updating their registration information.

“So we’re asking voters to return their cards by July 24th – the date is on the card – and those who do not respond will have their record marked as inactive,” Lawsaon said.

Being marked as inactive  won’t remove voters from the rolls – they can still show up to vote between now and January of 2017.

“In November of ’14, in 2015 during municipal elections, or in 2016 in the primary or the general election, the inactive status would be removed from their voter record,” Lawson said.

The last time Indiana conducted a statewide voter registration cleanup mailing was 2006, when it removed 600,000 duplicative or inaccurate records from the rolls.