By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
September 12, 2025
At a news conference Friday morning, Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales championed his office’s effort to ensure only U.S. citizens are on the state’s voter rolls, but voting-rights advocacy groups criticized Morales, saying his actions are eroding trust in elections.
Morales called the news conference to announce a noncitizen had been discovered on the Vigo County voter registration list and had voted in several elections since 2018. Although he noted the investigation is ongoing and the individual has not been charged with any crime, the secretary said the discovery is the result of his office’s work with the Trump administration to strengthen election integrity.
“This case in Vigo County is proof that our hard work is paying off,” Morales said. “It is proof that noncitizens have voted in Indiana, and it is proof that our legislation is necessary and effective. As no charges have been filed, we will not be releasing the individual’s name, but I’m confident after a full investigation has been completed, this individual will be held accountable.”
Also, Morales announced his office has turned over the voter information requested by the U.S. Department of Justice. In July and August, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division sent the Indiana Secretary of State letters asking for a copy of the list of registered Hoosier voters.
At least 27 other states have received similar requests for voter registration lists from the DOJ, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. The center described the data sought by the federal government as “sensitive information” and said the collection of the voter registration lists raises “serious privacy and security concerns and may violate state and federal laws.”
Morales said his office consulted with Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office and was told the secretary could provide the information the Department of Justice had requested. So the secretary of state’s office gave the federal government the name, address, date of birth, driver’s license number and last four digits of the Social Security number for every individual on Indiana’s voter rolls.
“We have recently responded by sending all the information they have requested, complying with federal oversight,” Morales said, referring to the Department of Justice. “The Trump administration has made election integrity a top priority. If providing the Justice Department information can help Indiana ensure our voter lists are accurate and up to date, we will do so. We will take all the help we can get.”
However, Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, said Morales is doing things that his predecessors refused to do. She pointed to former Secretary of State Connie Lawson, who did not allow officials from the first Trump administration to access Indiana’s voter information.
“We are disappointed to hear that the secretary of state has shared the Indiana voter file with the DOJ without a clear understanding of what they intend to do with it,” Vaughn said in an email. “State and federal law is explicit on this topic; sensitive information about voters, like their date of birth and driver’s license numbers, must not be compromised.”
Morales credited House Enrolled Act 1264, which took effect July 1, with enabling officials to spot the noncitizen voter in Vigo County.
HEA 1264, which was authored by Rep. Timothy Wesco, R-Osceola, requires county voter registration officials to request proof of citizenship from individuals flagged as potential noncitizens. Under the provisions of the law, the names on the counties’ voter rolls must be checked against the list of individuals who have temporary driving credentials from the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Temporary credentials are available to legal residents who are not U.S. citizens and, therefore, not eligible to vote. However, some people who are listed by the BMV as having these credentials may have since become naturalized U.S. citizens.
Any registered voter who is also on the BMV lisit will receive a letter requiring them to provide documentary proof of their citizenship, such as a U.S. passport or naturalization certificate, to their county clerk.
Morales said the Vigo County noncitizen voter was included on the list of 1,611 Hoosiers who were flagged when the local registration roll was checked against the BMV temporary credential list. The man, responding to the letter requiring proof of citizenship, arrived at the clerk’s office with a Mexican passport and confirmed he was not a U.S. citizen.
“Let me be clear, one case is too many,” Morales said. “This is exactly why we passed House Enrolled Act 1264 and this case proves our reforms are working.”
However, HEA 1264, along with House Enrolled Act 1680, which expands the proof-of-citizenship requirement, and Senate Enrolled Act 10, which imposes a 48-hour deadline for counties to update their registration rolls when proof of citizenship is not provided, stirred a lot of controversy as they worked through the Indiana General Assembly. Voting-rights advocates, led by the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, have cautioned the secretary of state that Indiana’s proof-of-citizenship voting requirement potentially violate the National Voter Registration Act, because they could discriminate against naturalized citizens, and Indiana could be sued if it enforces these statutes.
“Nothing about this announcement changes the fact that the new voting laws in question … continue to risk disenfranchisement,” Ami Gandhi, CLCCR director of strategic initiatives and the Midwest Voting Rights Program, said. “These laws are an oversized and misguided tool that rely on inaccurate and outdated data and, as such, are prone to causing misidentification and improper removal from the voter rolls.”
Morales said the matter was handed over to the Vigo County Prosecutor’s Office, which has asked the Indiana State Police to investigate. Also, the secretary said, his office provided the information about this case to the Department of Justice, which has given it to the FBI for further investigation.
“Future cases may take a little more time and be more challenging,” Morales said at his press conference. “We will work with families to get more information about the individuals who have not provided proof of citizenship based on the request that was sent to them. We will provide that information to law enforcement to investigate the legal status of those individuals.”
Both Vaughn and Gandhi noted that drawing conclusions about the Vigo County case is difficult, because the investigation is ongoing and information is still being gathered.
“Without seeing the whole picture … we can’t jump to conclusions that there is widespread noncitizen voting happening in our elections, which has been the claim and rhetoric underpinning these proof-of-citizenship laws,” Gandhi said. “It’s very understandable that community members have questions about our election system in these times, and people deserve complete answers and data. Anything else is irresponsible and erodes trust in our election systems to the detriment of voters themselves.”
Morales and his office’s general counsel, Jerold Bonnet, said they conferred with the attorney general’s office before turning the voter rolls over to the Justice Department.
At the press conference, Bonnet told reporters one of the letters from the DOJ cited the National Voter Registration Act as giving the federal government access to states’ voter rolls. The secretary of state’s office, he said, then consulted with the attorney general’s advisory section.
The DOJ letter asserted the NVRA provides that the “Justice Department Civil Rights Division Election Section has authority to examine all the state’s voter registration information to assure compliance with the voters’ maintenance requirements of the National Voter Registration Act,” Bonnet said. The attorney general’s office “advised us that the Justice Department did have authorization. We were required to provide that information on their request.”
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office did not respond to a request from The Indiana Citizen for comment about advising the secretary of state’s office.
Vaughn said Morales is not performing his required duties as secretary of state.
“Morales is supposed to protect Indiana voters and our personal information,” Vaughn said in an email. “Instead, he has put it at risk.”
Kegan Prentice, legislative director for the secretary of state’s office, said the July letter from the Justice Department was turned over to Angela Nussmeyer and Bradley King, who are the co-directors of the Indiana Election Division and the NVRA officials in Indiana. They did not respond. When the August letter from the DOJ arrived, the secretary of state’s office, again, forwarded it to Nussmeyer and King, but included a deadline to reply, Prentice said. After receiving no response, the office took action.
“Under Indiana law, if the NVRA officials do not carry out a duty that they should, the secretary has the authority to fulfill those duties,” Prentice said at the press conference without citing the specific state statute. “So, in the absence of a response from the election division, we consulted with the attorney general on if we should respond and what information we should send. So, we responded and we sent the entire voter list with all the personal identifying information.”
King did not respond to a request from The Citizen for comment.
In an email, Nussmeyer confirmed the election division has not responded to the DOJ letter. She said a response was drafted and a recommendation was made that the Justice Department complete the IEC-3 form to receive the restricted version of the statewide voter file. This was the procedure followed when the first Trump administration requested the voter rolls.
“At no point did I recommend turning over the unrestricted version of the statewide voter file to any entity that is not entitled to receive it under our state law,” Nussmeyer said in an email.
In championing his office’s work, Morales also referenced the list of nearly 600,000 registered Hoosier voters that was sent to the federal government in October 2024. Morales and Rokita submitted the list to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency less than a month before the presidential election, saying they were trying to confirm the citizenship status of those individuals.
The federal agency did not respond, but in July, Morales announced he had entered into a memorandum of agreement with the USCIS for access to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. Morales said at the news conference that his office has confirmed 85% of Indiana’s registered voters are U.S. citizens and he indicated that SAVE is being used to check the status of the individuals on the USCIS list.
“We have uploaded our base of registrations with the last four digits of Social Security numbers as an identifier and we are currently going through those results,” Morales said. “We hope this process will allow us to confirm the citizenship status of an additional 14% of registrations, allowing us to confidently say we have confirmed the citizenship status of 99% of Indiana’s registrations.”
The secretary of state’s office and the attorney general’s office have refused to publicly release the list of 585,774 Hoosier voters that was sent to the USCIS. Earlier this month, the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, parent of The Indiana Citizen, filed a lawsuit in Marion County Superior Court, asking that the state officials be compelled to make the list available to the public.
The case is still pending in court.
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.
