The Indiana Citizen filed suit Tuesday against Indiana’s secretary of state and attorney general, seeking a list of more than 585,000 registered Hoosier voters sent to the federal government to verify citizenship status. The offices have refused to provide it.
The Citizen is a nonprofit news outlet operated by the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc. and is an underwriter of Indiana Public Broadcasting of which WFIU/WTIU is a member station.
Reporter Marilyn Odendahl requested the list in October 2024, after Secretary of State Diego Morales and Attorney General Todd Rokita issued news releases about the request.
The letter, addressed to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ur Jaddou, asked the agency to use its “Person Centric Query Service” to verify a list of names and dates of birth. The list of 585,774 includes those who registered without an Indiana driver’s license number or a social security number — or who live overseas.
Indiana has 4.8 million residents registered to vote, so the letter invited scrutiny of about 12% on the rolls.
According to the lawsuit, Rokita’s office denied the records request in December last year on behalf of both offices. Odendahl then filed a complaint with then-Indiana Public Access Counselor Luke Britt, who ruled in February that the “denial was improper based on the law as plainly written.”
In March, the statewide officeholders sent a letter disagreeing with the ruling, but offered to allow the Citizen “limited public access” consisting of in-person inspection and the ability to make only “a handwritten transcription” of the records.
The Citizen objected to the rules but tried to schedule a time to review the list in July. Rokita and Morales asked new Public Access Counselor Jennifer Ruby to reconsider the complaint and withdrew their offer. There has been no further contact between the parties, according to the lawsuit.
The secretary of state’s office told the Citizen it has identified about 1,600 registered voters as potential noncitizens based on information from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the vendor overseeing the statewide voter registration system. Also, the office said it has utilized the SAVE system to verify the citizenship status of some Hoosiers.
Messages seeking comment from Rokita and Morales were not immediately returned.
Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com.
