Indiana’s Secretary of State says one of his top priorities is increasing Indiana’s voter turnout.
Turnout numbers vary wildly, depending on who’s on the ballot. The last presidential election brought out 65 percent of voters. But in 2019’s municipal election for mayors and city councils, just 23 percent of voters showed up.
Republican Secretary of State Diego Morales said his office wants to remind people to vote.
“This summer, we will be setting up shop at the Indiana State Fair,” he said, “to make sure registered voters [vote]. At the same time, I’m partnering with county clerks to make sure that we will do this in all 92 county fairs, so we can increase voter turnout.”
Morales spoke briefly at a Ball State University elections security certificate program graduation. Directly addressing several county clerks in the room, he said everyone is watching elections now, more than ever before.
“You run your elections in your counties the way you’re supposed to be running it.”
That’s a different tone than his campaign for the statewide office, when he pushed the big lie about the 2020 election’s legitimacy and proposed more restrictions on early voting. He later reversed those positions.
Indiana’s last Secretary of State, Republican Holli Sullivan, doubled the number of post-election audits the state conducts each year, saying it was to verify and analyze the election process.
