Indiana Attorney General Denies Request for Voter List Amid Citizenship Verification Effort

The Indiana Attorney General’s Office has refused to release a list of nearly 600,000 voters whose citizenship is being questioned by the state’s top lawyer and the Secretary of State. However, an Indiana University journalism professor and the publisher of The Indiana Citizen believe the officials should be more transparent about the contents of the list.

In October, Attorney General Todd Rokita and Secretary of State Diego Morales sent a list of 585,774 names from Indiana’s voter rolls to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to verify the citizenship status of each person. They stated that no voter’s registration would be changed based on this inquiry. While the letter they sent to USCIS was released, the list of names has not been made public.

Rokita’s office denied a request to access the list, citing Indiana law. They said that while media can request the full voter rolls, they cannot release parts of the list under state law. The attorney general’s office explained that the list is considered confidential and cannot be shared.

However, Gerry Lanosga, an Indiana University professor, believes that Rokita and Morales could still provide some details about how the list was made and the criteria used to identify these voters. Lanosga argues that the public deserves to know more about the list to ensure that the state is not misusing voter information. He suggested that the officials could share more without violating the law, pointing out that the public has a right to verify whether the process is being handled fairly.

The officials explained in their letter to USCIS that they were verifying citizenship to prevent voter fraud and ensure the integrity of the state’s voter rolls. The list includes voters who registered without providing a driver’s license or Social Security number, or who are living overseas.

The Indiana Citizen had requested access to the list before the Nov. 5 election but was denied. Publisher Bill Moreau disagrees with the Attorney General’s decision, saying that it makes no sense to hide the list when it was made public ahead of the election.

Lanosga also suggested that lawmakers may need to revisit this area of the law, as it seems illogical that the state can release the full voter rolls but not parts of it. He believes more transparency could help ease public concerns.

The debate over this issue continues, with calls for more clarity and transparency from the state officials.

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