Civic groups host drive for National Voter Registration Day

Melissa Borja holds her dog, Jollibee Chickenjoy, at a drive during National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 17, 2024. Borja hopes to encourage voters to check their registration and help unregistered Hoosiers submit applications before the Oct. 7 registration deadline. (Whitney Downard/Indiana Capital Chronicle)

The first time Jeannie Reed voted, she was 40 years old.

“I will never forget that day — I get goosebumps talking about it now. Because my voice is important,” Reed said. 

Reed had been incarcerated or otherwise involved with the state’s justice system for decades, dating back to her youth. Upon release, Reed was led to believe that she’d lost her right to vote.

“My vote matters, and to be told that I couldn’t was devastating to me,” Reed said. “… please get out there and register. I think it’s very important we all have a say, and we all have a voice.

“And for those who are previously incarcerated, we’ve been told for years, ‘You don’t matter. Be still and be quiet.’ But we do. And our voices — united — can make a change.”

Indiana is among a minority of states that automatically grants a formerly incarcerated person their right to vote without restrictions — though that protection isn’t widely known.

Hoosiers like Reed often don’t know they can register to vote after incarceration. Getting these Hoosiers and others to register to vote before the Oct. 7 deadline is a goal for a coalition of civic groups known as All IN for Democracy.

During a press conference Tuesday in downtown Indianapolis on National Voter Registration Day, representatives from Common Cause Indiana, the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, the League of Women Voters Indiana, Hoosier Asian American Power, the League of Conservation Voters and the Indiana Alliance for Retired Americans urged every Hoosier to check their voter registration before Election Day. 

In Indiana, registrations must be completed one month in advance, meaning Hoosiers have just a few weeks left to check their voter status and register. 

Despite the heat, the registration drive attracted at least one voter before its official kickoff: an unhoused man who didn’t know he could still register without a permanent address. 

Indiana’s low voter turnout

Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales announced Tuesday that over 90% of eligible Hoosiers — more than 4.7 million Hoosiers — are registered to vote and that Indiana’s voter registration rate continues to grow leading to the November 5th General Election.

But over the last decade, Indiana has consistently ranked in the bottom ten states for voter turnout. In the most recent elections at the municipal level, only 21% of the state’s registered voters cast their ballots. In 2022 — a larger election with several statewide races — turnout was 40%. 

During the 2020 presidential election, which is traditionally a high point in terms of voter turnout, just under two thirds of registered Hoosiers voted, all according to reports compiled by the Secretary of State’s Office.

The coalition of groups pointed to various hurdles to voting, such as new requirements for first-time voters and proof of citizenship.

“… Our work is made more difficult by Indiana’s regressive election policy. We need changes to Indiana’s voting laws to make registration and voting more convenient and accessible to all Hoosiers,” said Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana. 

“We must remove the barriers that exist and that are keeping Indiana at the bottom of the pack when it comes to turnout.”

A representative with the ACLU said it hopes to reach voters like Reed with a statewide advertising campaign that includes buses, radio ads, posters and video testimonials. 

Speakers line up at a voter registration effort in downtown Indianapolis. (Whitney Downard/Indiana Capital Chronicle)

Efforts to educate Hoosiers also include traditional methods — including volunteers with the League of Women Voters handing out forms after naturalization ceremonies or Second Chance Workshops — alongside nontraditional advertising, such as a dog named Jollibee Chickenjoy wearing a QR code sign. 

Melissa Borja, with Hoosier Asian American Power, brought her dog as part of the drive and used her time at the podium to detail the “gift” of voting for her immigrant family. 

“My parents are immigrants from the Philippines, where they had relatively few voting rights … growing up, voting was a gift. It was a joy. It wasn’t just a responsibility; it was a delight. Because it’s something my family doesn’t take for granted,” Borja said. 

Current political rhetoric has frequently been anti-immigrant, Borja noted, even as immigrants prove to be a boon for cities, states and the nation as a whole. 

Additional identity requirements can be cumbersome, especially in an age when online retailers seem to already have reams of customer data on everyone, said Randy Schmidt with the Indiana Alliance of Retired Americans. 

Randy Schmidt, with the Indiana Alliance of Retired Americans, calls for same-day voter registration at a Sept. 17, 2024 event in downtown Indianapolis. (Whitney Downard/Indiana Capital Chronicle)

“How is it that the government … doesn’t seem to be able to know a damn thing about any of us? And they say, ‘Oh, we’ve got to have 30 days to process all of this information to figure out that there’s no fraud going on.’ It’s all nonsense,” Schmidt said. 

The Fort Wayne resident called for changing state law to allow same-day voter registration just like he used when he was a first-time voter in Wisconsin. Nearly half of states allow voters to register on Election Day.

“This is the most important thing that we should be fighting for — because all of the other things we claim to care about, all of the other rights — all spring from our ability to vote,” Schmidt said. 

Vaughn acknowledged that same-day voting might be a stretch for the General Assembly. Both chambers currently have a Republican supermajority. Rather, she proposed pushing back the voter registration deadline from Oct. 7. 

“While that may have made sense decades ago, there is no reason to have such an early deadline when we have a statewide electronic list of registered voters. 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.”