Given that you’re reading this newspaper, you’re probably going to vote in the May 7 Indiana primary, and the Nov. 5 general election.
Newspaper readers are 25% more likely to vote than folks who get their news by word of mouth, from friends and family, or social media, according to a 2020 national study by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
But Hoosiers in general vote less often than most other Americans. And the state’s track record isn’t getting better. The 2023 Indiana Civic Health Index — produced every two years by the Indiana Bar Foundation and the Indiana Civics Coalition — details the situation.
In the 2010 midterm election, Indiana ranked 48th in the nation in voter turnout. By the 2022 midterm, Indiana had slipped to 50th.
Well, didn’t the Hoosier State generate a record turnout in the high-profile 2020 presidential election? Yes, 61% of Indiana’s registered voters cast ballots in that Biden-Trump presidential election — a total of 3,068,265 residents. It was an increase of 9.3% from 2016.
But the national turnout surged by 15% from four years earlier. Thus, Indiana ranked 46th in turnout in 2020, a drop from 36th in the 2012 presidential election.
As for voter registration during the 2010-2022 period, Indiana ranks 40th.
Public policy tools exist for getting more people to vote. Those could include the state implementing automatic voter registration, Election Day (or same-day) voter registration, unrestricted absentee voting, and Election Day voting hours exceeding 12 hours. States with the healthiest voter participation rates offer those paths to voting. By contrast, the one-partyrule Indiana General Assembly has steadfastly let die any legislative attempts to add those positives to state policy.
So, as long the Statehouse is dominated by one super-majority party, the reality is the Republican leadership won’t be allowing any automatic voter registration, sameday voter registration, unrestricted absentee voting or Election Days longer than 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Any meaningful changes to the current system theoretically endanger the ruling party’s power grip. Thus, no such changes will be coming in the current legislative session.
(For example, how far a well-intentioned Senate Bill 283 by state Sen. Andrea Hunley, an Indianapolis Democrat, gets. Her proposal would ease absentee voting restrictions and automatically register to vote Hoosiers applying for a driver’s license. Follow the bill’s progress online at iga.in.gov/legislative/ 2024/bills/senate/283/details.)
How then can Indiana improve? Only through the grassroots level.
The latest Indiana Civic Health Index report encourages “a concerted focus on registering Hoosier youth” at the community level. The potential is there. The current junior and senior classes in Indiana high schools total 80,000 students each.
“That’s 160,000 potential Indiana voters,” Bill Moreau, co-Founder and president of the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, said Thursday by phone from Indianapolis. “And how do you put that option in front of them.”
Two likely ways. The most obvious 21st-century method is a social media contact with those current or soon-to-be 18-year-olds. Somehow, they should be guided to this link — in Indiana, the Civic Health Index reports. Among the 18-19 age group, Indiana ranked last in voter registration change from 2016 to 2020 among 39 states studied by the Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (known as CIRCLE).
Last. “I am very disappointed the Index shows Indiana ranked 50th for turnout and 40th for registration in 2022,” former Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels said in a coalition news release. “We’re better citizens than that. We can and should work to improve those numbers. Accordingly, I applaud the Index’s call to increase the number of Hoosiers eligible to vote in the 2024 elections by increasing registrations.”
Local League of Women Voters chapters, NAACP branches, churches, service organizations, campus democracy groups and other organizations must get the word out to young Hoosiers in hopes they’ll first register and then, most importantly, actually follow through and vote.
“It requires people of goodwill at the community level — real citizens, civilians, not members of the political class — to say, ‘This is important,’” Moreau said.
He and his wife Ann, cofounders of the nonprofit Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, also are board members of the Indiana Citizen — a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform aimed at boosting the number of civically informed, engaged Hoosiers. Fittingly, its homepage ( indianacitizen.org) contains a link to register to vote through the Indiana Secretary of State’s Office.
Moreau knows the turf. He served as Indiana deputy secretary of state in the 1980s.
Sadly, Vigo County’s voter turnouts have been among the lowest in Indiana — a historically weak-turnout state, no less — in recent election cycles. A cohesive local network of community groups is the best hope to get more young people to vote and help bolster this exercise of democracy. Basically, it’s a roll-up-your-sleeves challenge.
“This is a cause that has to be championed at the local level by local leaders, with no political agenda of their own other than the perpetuation of democracy,” Moreau said.
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