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By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
November 22, 2024

The Indiana attorney general and Indiana secretary of state told the Indiana public access counselor on Wednesday that they are still determining whether the list of 585,774 registered Hoosier voters whose citizenship status they are questioning can be released to the public.

“The SOS has been working to determine if the data contained in the records is available for public access under restrictions in the Indiana Election Code and state data privacy laws,” the two state offices told the public access counselor. “While individual registered voters may access their individual voter registration information, bulk data and data extracts and reports from the Indiana Statewide Voter Registration System database, compiled for official use, may be subject to data access and use restrictions.”

In their joint written response to the public access counselor, the attorney general and the secretary of state did not provide any timeline for when they would determine whether the list is a public record.

On Oct. 17, the attorney general and secretary of state announced they had sent the list to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, asking for verification that the nearly 600,000 Hoosiers on the list were U.S. citizens and, therefore, eligible to vote in the Nov. 5, 2024, election. The two offices included a copy of the Oct. 11 letter sent to USCIS in their public announcement, but did not provide a copy of the list of those registered voters. The list was divided into three separate categories based on certain identification that may have been missing when the individuals registered or whether they were living overseas.

When The Indiana Citizen asked for the list, the attorney general’s office advised filing an Access to Public Records Act request to obtain the information. The Citizen filed an APRA request and, because of the approaching election, the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, publisher of The Citizen, filed a complaint with the public access counselor seeking to get the list released before Nov. 5.

“As of this filing, hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers have voted,” Bill Moreau, president of the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation and publisher of The Citizen, wrote in his Oct. 31 complaint to the public access counselor. “It is not six days until the final day of voting, November 5. Meanwhile, the Attorney General and Secretary of State have arbitrarily created a cloud hanging over 585,744 Hoosiers, alleging – without proof – that some people on the lists are not citizens, and therefore criminals.

One day ahead of the public access counselor’s Nov. 21 deadline to respond to the complaint, the attorney general and the secretary of state told the official that they “believe they have complied with all requirements of the Access to Public Records Act.” In particular, they argued that they have not denied The Citizen’s request for the list.

The two offices told the public access counselor that in response to their Oct. 17 public announcement, the secretary of state received “10 media inquiries and four potential public record access requests.” The next day, the secretary of state contacted the attorney general “about the requests and public access to the information contained in the records at issue,” the offices said.

Also, the attorney general and the secretary of state said they are not taking an “unreasonable amount of time by any estimation” in responding to The Citizen’s request for the list, since eight days after asking for the list, the nonprofit filed the complaint with the public access counselor.

The two offices said The Citizen’s request was sent to the attorney general’s advisory division, which has a staff of 12 that responds to all public records requests. Currently, the division has 50 pending APRA requests ahead of The Citizen’s, the offices said.

“Finally, in the interest of fairness and practicality, the (office of the attorney general) processes APRA requests in the order they are received,” the two offices told the public access counselor. “There are no ‘exigent circumstances’ or ‘emergency need’ requirement in the statute.”

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.