Indiana is likely to have fewer registered voters for next month‘s primary than it did four years ago.
About 31,000 new voters registered ahead of Monday‘s deadline, but more than 43,000 duplicate or canceled registrations were removed from the rolls. That is a net loss of nearly 13,000 names, according to the most recent count.
"April 7 is the last day to register, so I'm sure there are still county clerks out there who are processing new registrations that were not included on the report," Secretary of State Connie Lawson says.
Lawson says the state has not conducted a purge of outdated registrations. She says the reductions reflect voters who canceled their own registration or moved from one county to another, prompting the deletion of their old registration.
Lawson says the reduction in new registrations may reflect a lack of compelling races.
Just 10 counties have net increases in registered voters in the preliminary figures, with none adding more than 114 names.