Indiana Voter Rolls Cleanup Continues

Indiana has identified more than 700,000 voter records that need to be updated or marked inactive in its effort to clean up the state’s voter rolls. 

Earlier this year, Secretary of State Connie Lawson’s office sent postcards to every Hoosier on the voter list.  More than 750,000 came back as undeliverable.  A second mailing went out in June, that time asking voters to respond.  Forty-seven thousand Hoosiers did, updating their voter information. But, more than 700,000 of the postcards from the second mailing came back as undeliverable, or weren’t returned at all. Those records have now been marked as inactive. 

Lawson says an inactive voter record won’t bar a person from voting this fall. In fact, Hoosiers have until 2017 to vote in an election or update their information before their records are removed from the rolls completely. 

Lawson says the voter list cleanup helps the state get an accurate picture of election turnout.  For example, she notes that if the state had excluded the records now marked inactive when calculating turnout for May’s primary, actual turnout would have been about 17 percent rather than the historic low of 13 percent.