Indiana officials say review found 21 noncitizens voting in state

State officials say a federal agency review found 21 noncitizens have cast ballots in Indiana elections, along with 165 noncitizens who registered to vote in the state.

Those figures were included in an announcement Wednesday from the offices of Attorney General Todd Rokita and Secretary of State Diego Morales about the settlement of a lawsuit in which they sought to force the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to verify the citizenship of more than 585,000 registered Hoosier voters. 

It was not clear how many of those voter registrations had been reviewed by the federal agency and when the illegal voting was alleged to have occurred.

In 2024, Indiana had 4.8 million registered voters and just under 3 million, or 62%, voted in that year’s general election. The Hoosier state has one of the lowest voter turnouts in the country.
 

Rokita and Morales, both Republicans, filed the lawsuit in April, seeking to force federal review of the voter list after the agency did not do so during then-President Joe Biden’s administration when first requested in October 2024 — just weeks before that year’s presidential election.

Rokita said in a statement that the settlement “delivers the federal access we’re entitled to under law, allowing the Secretary of State to swiftly remove ineligible voters from the rolls and fortify our system against future risks.”

“From day one, many individuals dismissed our work as a ‘witch hunt’ — but the facts speak for themselves: non-citizen voting is real here in our state, and even one illegal ballot undermines the trust we are told to have in our election processes and even the Republic itself,” Rokita said.

Rokita’s office did not answer questions from the Indiana Capital Chronicle about how it had confirmed the instances of noncitizens registering to vote and casting ballots — and whether any legal action against those people was being sought.

The announcement said the ballots had been wrongly cast in “recent elections” but did not provide additional information.

Morales spokeswoman Lindsey Eaton said the review “includes voters in 2024 and past elections. It’s based on statewide voter history.”

It is illegal under both Indiana and federal law for noncitizens to vote in elections.

Actions criticized as voter intimidation

Voting-rights advocates previously denounced as attempted voter intimidation the request from Rokita and Morales for review of the nearly 600,000 registrations by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — which is housed within the homeland security agency.

The Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, which is representing several Indiana groups in legal challenges to state election law changes, criticized the actions by Rokita and Morales.

“Hoosiers who have become U.S. citizens are needlessly harmed by these efforts. This preliminary information from USCIS has not been verified,” the organization said.

Eaton said the secretary of state’s office “believes information received from USCIS is accurate and we will provide more information concerning referrals to law enforcement in the near future.”

That requested review covered about one in eight people on Indiana’s voter rolls, involving those who registered without providing a state-issued form of identification.

Indiana was among four Republican states agreeing in the lawsuit settlement filed Friday to help the Trump administration gain access to state driver’s license data through a nationwide law enforcement computer network seeking out alleged noncitizen voters.

Under the agreement with Florida, Indiana, Iowa and Ohio, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is required to continue its development of a program capable of scanning millions of state voter records for instances of noncitizen registered voters.

Morales announced in September that his office had identified a noncitizen living in Vigo County who alleged had registered to vote in 2018 and cast ballots in six elections.

That case was referred to county and federal prosecutors, but it was unclear whether any legal action has been taken as those offices did not immediately reply Wednesday to messages seeking an update.

Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com.