Indiana’s HB 1116 Takes One Step Forward, One Step Back for Voting Rights
Last week, we joined a coalition of voting rights groups to oppose HB 1116, a proposed law that unnecessarily punishes voters for requesting vote-by-mail ballots in Indiana.
Indiana already has some of the nation’s harshest voting restrictions. As originally written, HB 1116 would have made voting even harder by requiring voters who wish to get a vote-by-mail ballot to swear - on penalty of perjury – that they could not vote in person during any period of the entire month of early voting or on election day itself. Under that bill, if Hoosiers wrongly request a vote-by-mail ballot, they could face a fine of up to $10,000 and even imprisonment for up to 2.5 years.
Chicago Lawyers’ Committee has forcefully opposed the bill. Last Monday, our Senior Counsel Ami Gandhi traveled to the Indiana State Capitol to testify alongside our partners.
As Jalyn Radziminski of Count Us Indiana has said: "Creating more barriers to voting by mail is the opposite of what our community has requested. By blocking access to absentee ballots, House Bill 1116 targets people who have a hard time getting to the polls, including low-income communities of color."
Barbara Bolling-Williams of the Indiana State Conference of the NAACP said, “We believe that laws should only be enacted to address a problem or to make the lives of Indiana voters better. HB 1116 does neither.”
Ultimately, lawmakers amended the bill to eliminate the harshest aspects.
While Hoosiers won some reprieve from the worst parts of the bill, the proposed law still poses threats to voting rights. The bill harms those who, for one reason or another, are required to use a provisional ballot. The bill now rolls back a requirement that they be notified about how to ensure their ballot is counted, even though advocates noted that Hoosiers already lack the information they need from election authorities to cast a provisional ballot.
“Taking away information isn’t going to make this situation any better. Likely, it’s going to be worse,” said Julia Vaughn of Common Cause Indiana.
“We’re potentially telling thousands of citizens that their votes don’t matter and might not be counted,” said our Senior Counsel Ami Gandhi. “This seems like the opposite of election security and counting ballots carefully and appropriately and would run afoul of due process protections enshrined in the US Constitution.”
The current version of HB 1116 would also require voters who submit an online application for a vote-by-mail ballot to include their driver's license or Social Security number with the application, which could block many eligible voters from getting a ballot. Many people without driver’s licenses may not be willing to put their Social Security number in an online form.
As Gandhi told reporters, "In the state of Indiana, we don't value drivers' voting rights more than non-drivers. We can do better than that at respecting all eligible citizens' voting rights."
Gandhi pressed lawmakers to include a more expansive list of acceptable IDs, in addition to other necessary changes to the law.
During the hearing, lawmakers also stated that voters who apply to vote by mail will be told, incorrectly, that they can’t vote in person. But current Indiana allows in-person access for voters whose vote-by-mail ballots do not arrive in a timely manner, for example. Legislators’ actions threaten to further confuse and disenfranchise voters.
Chicago Lawyers’ Committee continues to monitor the bill alongside our community partners.