A Proposed Law Would Make Voting in Indiana Even Harder Than it is Already
Update: The Indiana State Legislature dropped SB 353 on Thursday, April 22.
This February, Indiana lawmakers agreed to strip a proof-of-citizenship requirement from a proposed election bill after attorneys with Chicago Lawyers’ Committee and other advocates raised constitutional concerns. Instead, the legislators added new language to SB 353 that would limit voting by mail by requiring that applications must be rejected if there is any mismatch between the application and the social security number or driver’s license number on record with election authorities, among other onerous requirements. Just like the rejected proof-of-citizenship provision, this process would certainly violate federal legal protections and would disenfranchise marginalized community members, including voters of color, voters with disabilities, and seniors.
In response, we submitted testimony with help from the national Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law to the Indiana House Elections & Apportionment Committee opposing Indiana State Bill 353. Here is an excerpt:
“Indiana’s absentee voting system already is exclusionary, with voters being eligible to vote by mail only if they present a specific type of eligibility criteria, such as voters with disabilities, homebound voters, voters who are 65 years or older, voters confined to a residence or health care facility because of illness or injury, voters who lack transportation to the polls, voters scheduled to work or who will be outside the county during the entire time the polls are open, and active duty members of the military. Indiana’s absentee voting system is also quite limited in other ways, including extremely limited drop-off and dropbox options, an unduly early absentee ballot receipt deadline, and the lack of ballot tracking. In the middle of a pandemic, Indiana maintained its restrictive absentee system in 2020, preventing additional eligible voters from participating by mail.
Hoosier voters persevered through these barriers, breaking records for in-person and absentee voting in 2020. Instead of tearing down barriers to voting, Indiana’s legislature seems focused on creating new ones. Indiana should be encouraging its citizens to vote. States that are legitimately working to improve election administration and access have been taking actions to make absentee voting more fair, accessible, and streamlined. Instead, Senate Bill 353 would take Indiana backward, creating additional and unnecessary hurdles for voters and election officials alike.
Many community members who use absentee voting in Indiana are aged 65 or above or have disabilities. The same circumstances that caused many of these voters to need absentee voting access in the first place will make it more difficult for them to track down details about their original voter registration to ensure that their absentee ballot application contains matching data.
Requiring additional identification fields in absentee ballot applications will impose undue burdens on many eligible voters, and particularly voters of color, as well as seniors and low-wealth voters of all racial backgrounds and political parties. Through its new restrictions, SB 353 creates hurdles that impair, if not preclude, these voters from using Indiana’s absentee voting program. Many of these voters may find themselves unable to cast a ballot at all.
SB 353 makes no attempt to account for voters who registered in a legally permissible manner that does not entail providing a social security number or driver’s license number. For example, Indiana law permits individuals to register to vote by providing proof of residency through a utility bill, paycheck, or government document, but SB 353 disqualifies these eligible, registered voters from absentee voting. This scheme will have a particular impact on voters of color.
Even for voters who did list a social security number or driver’s license number during voter registration, they should not then be disqualified from voting absentee if they list different identification data on an absentee ballot application. Just as one example, as reported by the nonpartisan civic organization National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum Indiana chapter (NAPAWF Indiana), Asian American senior citizens found existing Indiana voter registration and absentee ballot request processes to be confusing during the 2020 election. NAPAWF Indiana learned this through their experiences hosting the state’s first outreach to Asian American women in 2020, making over 2,500 calls and mobilizing over 100 volunteers. NAPAWF Indiana and other non-partisan civic organizations have expressed that adding confusing requirements to the absentee ballot process would cause disproportionate harm to first-time voters, voters for whom English is a second language, senior voters, and homebound voters. Disenfranchising these citizens through SB 353 would erode their trust in the Indiana government.
SB 353 would violate federal civil rights protections that were historically enacted to stop suppression of Black voters. Given recent events in the Indiana Statehouse and across the country, Hoosiers are looking to Indiana government leaders to help community members start to heal, rather than dividing us further. In this moment, Hoosiers deserve better than for Indiana to become the next example of unfair and unnecessary disenfranchisement.”