Voter Registration Effort Spurs an Inquiry in Indiana
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Version 0 of 1. HAMMOND, Ind. — With accusations of rigging and voter fraud hanging over this year’s elections, alarms are set off by the mere suggestion of irregularities in the registration and voting process. So when questions were raised in Indiana this year about suspicious registration forms, the matter quickly snowballed, leading to a sweeping investigation, supported by the Republican secretary of state and led by the State Police. The contention was that some voter registration forms submitted by the Indiana Voter Registration Project, which set out this year to sign up thousands of African-Americans to vote in the state, were missing key information or appeared fraudulent. The State Police descended on the group’s headquarters this month, and conservatives have pointed to the case as a possible example of ineligible voters being recruited to sway elections. The Indiana Voter Registration Project insists there was no wrongdoing, pointed out that the state’s governor, Mike Pence, is the Republican vice-presidential candidate and asserted that the investigation was politically motivated. They invited federal authorities to come in and look for themselves. The state investigation is ongoing, with no resolution assured before the Nov. 8 election, when Indiana voters will select a new governor and United States senator; and help choose a new president. This is how the controversy unfolded: THE CLAIMS Debbie Hoskins, the elected clerk of Hendricks County, said she noticed problems several weeks ago with roughly 10 voter registration forms submitted by the Indiana Voter Registration Project. Some of the forms were missing information, said Ms. Hoskins, a Republican. In other instances, the signatures on the forms did not seem to match those already in a state database. Ms. Hoskins said her office contacted one registered voter and asked about a form purporting to update some registration information. The voter claimed to have filled out no such form. “Things didn’t feel right,” said Ms. Hoskins, whose concerns were to the State Police. “Things didn’t look right.” THE INVESTIGATION The Indiana State Police served a search warrant on Oct. 4 at the Indiana Voter Registration Project office in Indianapolis, in response to a tip in August about voter registration forms being submitted with “missing, incomplete and incorrect information.” At first the inquiry focused on just two counties, including Hendricks, but within a few days it had expanded to 56 of Indiana’s 92 counties. Capt. David Bursten, a State Police spokesman, declined to say how many voter registration forms had been called into question. He said the investigation remained active and that no one had yet been arrested. This week Connie Lawson, Indiana’s secretary of state, said that “thousands of dates of births and first names were changed” in the voter registration system and that “this may be a case of voter fraud.” That expanded the investigation by the State Police. In a statement, Captain Bursten said that “the changing of a first name and/or date of birth is consistent with what we are seeing on a number of voter registration applications submitted” by the voter registration project. THE VOTERS Reports of altered voter profiles created concern among citizens that they might have been unregistered. Ms. Hoskins, the county clerk, said a number of voters had been calling to check whether they were still eligible to vote. “There are a lot of people that are worried,” she said, adding that in each of those cases, “We haven’t had a problem so far.” THE PROJECT Craig Varoga, founder of a Washington-based nonprofit, Patriot Majority USA, said he had created the voter registration project because he was concerned about lower rates of voter participation among African-Americans in Indiana. Patriot Majority USA has ties to Democrats, but says that it is nonpartisan in its registration efforts. The project’s canvassers set up offices in Indianapolis and here in Hammond, targeting those parts of the state that have larger proportions of black citizens. The campaign lasted months, and Mr. Varoga said roughly 45,000 registration forms had been filled out. He acknowledged that a handful were missing information or seemed questionable, but he said his workers tried to flag those forms for clerks. “The people on the ground, they would go into the clerk’s office and say, ‘Here’s the most recent batch, and here’s the ones you should take an extra look at,’ ” Mr. Varoga said. He strongly denied any claims of wrongdoing or fraud. THE COUNTERCLAIMS In Indiana and elsewhere, Republicans have embraced voter identification and other restrictions on registration and voting, claiming that they were necessary to prevent fraud and protect the integrity of the process. Democrats have pushed back, accusing conservatives of trying to suppress the vote of blacks and other minorities, who more frequently vote Democratic. Mr. Varoga suggested that Mr. Pence’s administration might be involved in the investigation — an accusation the governor’s office and the State Police have denied. Civil rights leaders have said that just conducting such an inquiry could disenfranchise or intimidate black voters, and have called for the federal government to intervene. (A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.) Similar claims of voter fraud and deception were made against the group Acorn in the 2008 election, but they were largely found to be without merit. The group dissolved, however, in an avalanche of accusations by conservatives. THE STATUS Several county clerks told The Indianapolis Star this week that they were not seeing the widespread discrepancies in voter records that Ms. Lawson had warned about. Both sides say they want every eligible voter to be able to vote, but there is little time for a tidy resolution before Election Day. The State Police have warned that the investigation could be “complex and time consuming.” |