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By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
September 18, 2024

After speaking about the importance of voting and pushing back against what they see as the legislature’s efforts to make voting in Indiana more difficult, the members of the All IN Democracy coalition put their words into action.

The advocates gathered for a news conference Wednesday morning on the Richard G. Lugar Plaza in downtown Indianapolis to mark National Voter Registration Day. Under a clear blue sky and a bright sun, the speakers emphasized Indiana’s Oct. 7 deadline to register to vote in the November 2024 election, gave personal accounts of what voting meant to them and criticized state government for erecting barriers to casting a ballot.

Then coalition volunteers grabbed clipboards, paper registration forms and pens and began walking around the Mile Square and Monument Circle to ask people if they wanted to register to vote or check their voter registration status.

“We’re here to celebrate National Voter Registration Day by highlighting some of the great work that advocacy organizations are doing to get Hoosiers registered and ready to vote this general election,” Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, told the small crowd. “But we’re also here to remind Indiana policymakers that our work is made more difficult by Indiana’s regressive election policy.”

The Hoosier state has several voting laws that have been highlighted as burdensome and unnecessarily prohibitive. In addition to the early registration deadline, Indiana voters must get to the polls by 6 p.m. on Election Day, one of the earliest poll closing times in the country. Also, under what has been cited as the “most-restrictive-in-the-nation” voter ID law, they must present a photo ID card issued by the state of Indiana or federal government, such as an Indiana driver’s license, military ID or U.S. passport, in order to vote. Moreover, most Hoosiers will have to vote in person because of the state’s restrictions on absentee voting.

In the federal courts, Indiana voting laws have had a mixed record. In 2019, the 7^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a state law that allowed county election officials to purge the registration lists without attempting to contact the voters whose names were being removed. However, a year later, the 7^th Circuit reversed the district court and upheld the state statute that banned voters from asking a judge to keep the polls open beyond the 6 p.m. closing time.

Lawmakers remain undeterred, Vaughn said, and are still passing laws that restrict voting in the state. She pointed, in particular, to House Enrolled Act 1334, passed in 2023, which added a new requirement to apply for a mail-in ballot, and House Enrolled Act 1264, passed in 2024, which demands certain new voters to document their residence before they will be allowed to vote.

Noting that “bold reforms,” such as allowing Hoosiers to register on Election Day, would not likely pass the Indiana General Assembly, Vaughn proposed a “more reasonable compromise” of moving the voter registration deadline closer to the election. Closing voter registration 29 days in advance of Election Day may have made sense decades ago, she said, but now that an electronic list of registered voters is available statewide, the deadline does not have to be so early.

“We’re calling on the leadership of the Indiana House and Senate to stop ignoring the fact that our Hoosier democracy is on life support and desperately in need of extensive reforms to become vibrant once again,” Vaughn said. “Extending the voter registration deadline closer to Election Day would be a good place to start.”

Clearing confusion over voter eligibility

In contrast to Indiana’s many voter restrictions, the state automatically restores voting rights to formerly incarcerated individuals.

The ACLU of Indiana has been focused on dispelling the “common  misconceptions” about voter eligibility and, especially, has publicized that “justice-involved Hoosiers” can cast a ballot when they are released from a county jail or prison, said Laura Forbes, spokeswoman for the organization. As part of its campaign to inform voters, the ACLU is posting “Yes, You Can Vote!” ads on IndyGo buses.

Jeannie Reed said talking about casting her first ballot when she was 40 still gives her goosebumps. Having been told that she had lost her right to vote because of her incarceration, she said, she has worked since them to counter that falsehood and has personally helped register 45 new voters.

“We all have a voice,” Reed said Wednesday morning. “And for those who are previously incarcerated, we’ve been told for years, ‘You don’t matter. Sit still, be quiet.’ But we do (matter) and our voices, united, can make change.”

Speaking after the news conference, Chelsea McDonnel, co-founder of the nonpartisan MADVoters Indiana, said her group is making an extra effort to share the message of the importance of voting with college students. The nonprofit is not only providing information about who is on the Nov. 5, 2024, ballot but also giving the students bookmarkers, on which they can write how and why they will vote.

Young adults, McDonnel said, are concerned about the changes they see in Indiana, including friends and relatives moving out of state because of restrictive laws, such as the state’s near-total abortion ban. They worry that their future is going to be compromised, so they are motivated to get involved, but they need to be taught how government works and how they can bring about change.

“A lot of people don’t want to hear from the young people, or they think that they can kind of trick (the young adults) into doing what they want,” McDonnel said. “They’re a lot smarter than that and they’re not going to vote for people who haven’t earned their votes.”

Dwight Adams, an editor and writer based in Indianapolis, edited this article. He has been a content editor, copy editor and digital producer at The Indianapolis Star and IndyStar.com, and a planner for other papers, 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.