By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
September 3, 2026
In a one-page order issued on Monday, a Marion County Superior Court judge has blocked access to the list of nearly 600,000 Hoosier voters that the Indiana attorney general and Indiana secretary of state turned over to the federal government a few weeks before the 2024 November presidential election.
Judge Kurt Eisgruber did not provide any explanation in granting the cross-motion for summary judgment filed by Attorney General Todd Rokita and Secretary of State Diego Morales. The ruling means registered Indiana voters will not be able to see if they were included on the list of 585,774 names that Rokita and Morales gave to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in October 2024, seeking verification of the voters’ citizenship status.
This court order is in response to a lawsuit brought by The Indiana Citizen. The nonprofit news organization filed a complaint with the trial court in September 2025, asserting the attorney general and secretary of state had “unlawfully withheld” the names submitted to the USCIS.
In this case, The Citizen is represented by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Rokita and Morales are represented by the attorney general’s office.
Both the motion for summary judgment filed by The Citizen, and the cross-motion for summary judgment filed by Rokita and Morales focused on a section of the Indiana Code that governs the state’s voter registration rolls. The two parties disagreed over the scope of the statute and its application to the state agencies.
Indiana Code 3-7-26.4-2 prohibits the Indiana Election Division from providing “any part of the compilation of the voter registration information contained in the computerized list.”
The Citizen argued the secretary of state is not constrained by the statute. Moreover, the news outlet said, the information being requested is not a compilation of the voter registration data. Rather, the plaintiff is seeking the list created by the secretary of state and the attorney general that was attached to the letter sent to the federal government.
Rokita and Morales countered the confidentiality provisions in the statute apply to the secretary of state because the Election Division is part of that office and limiting the requirements to a section with a state agency would be illogical. Since the information was compiled from the statewide voter registration rolls, the USCIS list “falls squarely under the state-level restriction and may not be disclosed.”
Eisgruber did not directly address either argument or provide the basis for his decision. While he noted his ruling is “a final appealable Order,” counsel for The Citizen said no decision has been made as to what the next step will be.
“Hoosiers have a right to know how their state government is handling elections and voter registration issues,” Kristopher Cundiff, local legal initiative attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said in an email. “We are reviewing our options for next steps in light of the court’s decision.”
Neither Rokita nor Morales responded to a request for comment on the ruling.
In the Oct. 11, 2024 letter sent to Ur M. Jaddou, then director of USCIS, Rokita and Morales said they were providing the name and date of birth for each individual for whom they were wanting to confirm citizenship status. The list was divided into three categories: registered Indiana voters living overseas or Hoosiers who registered to vote without showing a driver’s license or registered without giving a Social Security number.
Creating and sending a list of voters to the federal government within weeks of the election incited a strong backlash from voting-rights organizations. However, Rokita defended the move by alluding to voter fraud but offered no evidence of nefarious acts occurring at the ballot box.
“Hoosiers deserve to know that only eligible voters are participating in our elections and that legitimate ballots are not being diluted by noncitizens,” Rokita said when the list was announced. “We are doing our part to provide this assurance.”
In an advisory opinion issued in February 2025, the Indiana public access counselor determined that Rokita and Morales had “improperly withheld” the list. The PAC disagreed with the attorney general’s contention that the list contained voter information which state statute designated as confidential
Specifically, the public access counselor noted the Indiana Election Division did not create the list and deferred any decisions about it to the secretary of state. Consequently, the PAC, too, found Indiana Code 3-7-26.4-2 placed a prohibition that covered only the Election Division and did not extend to the secretary of state.
“Therefore, if the election division did not directly participate in the curation of the list in question, the statute used for denial does not apply,” the PAC reasoned in the advisory opinion.
Open records experts also criticized the state for not disclosing the USCIS list
“These public officials are constitutionally elected state officers,” Gerry Lanosga told The Statehouse File in September 2025. “They owe the public a real, detailed explanation of how they arrived at these particular sets of voters.”
In the briefs filed for summary judgment, the opposing sides continued to argue whether the list sent to USCIS is confidential.
The Citizen asserted the list is a freestanding document which does not contain information that is private.
“What (the lists) would reveal … is which Hoosier voters (Rokita and Morales) selected for special scrutiny just before a presidential election,” The Citizen argued in its reply brief. “That information is newsworthy and there is no basis under the law to withhold public records that might shed light on those issues.”
Bolstering its argument that the list is not protected from public disclosure, The Citizen highlighted the offer Rokita and Morales made following the PAC’s assessment. The state officials were going to allow the news organization to review and take notes, but only by hand, on the list of nearly 600,000 names.
“Although that offer fell far short of Defendants’ obligations under (the Indiana Access to Public Records Act) – and was directly at odds with Defendants’ ostensible position that they were statutorily prohibited from disclosing the records in any form – The Indiana Citizen called Defendants’ bluff and accepted the offer as an interim measure,” The Citizen said in its summary judgment motion. “Defendants then rescinded the offer, forcing The Indiana Citizen to seek relief in this Court.”
Rokita and Morales argued in their court briefings the list contains voter records pulled from the registration rolls and that information is confidential. Moreover, the ban on disclosing the data extends to the secretary of state because the Election Division is part of that office.
“Instead of grappling with the controlling statute, Plaintiff (and the former Public Access Counselor along with it) go on a speculative journey to discover why the Secretary of State and Attorney General must disclose the lists, perhaps realizing that the position that the statute limits disclosure by only one part of an office is unsatisfying.”
The case is Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc., d/b/a The Indiana Citizen v. Office of the Indiana Secretary of State and Office of the Indiana Attorney General, 49D06-2509-PL-041604.
Dwight Adams, an editor and writer based in Indianapolis, edited this article. He is a former content editor, copy editor and digital producer at The Indianapolis Star and IndyStar.com, and worked as a planner for other newspapers, including the Louisville Courier Journal.
The Indiana Citizen is a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed and engaged Hoosier citizens. We are operated by the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. For questions about the story, contact Marilyn Odendahl at marilyn.odendahl@indianacitizen.org.
