Hoosiers may rank the attributes of an engaged, civic-minded citizen differently, but most would generally agree on the overall list.
Good citizens tend to volunteer, attend public meetings and forums, learn from diverse sources of news, help their neighbors, join service or religious organizations, donate to charities, and maybe write letters to the editor of their local newspaper.
Some assist with elections, deeds which could range from serving as a poll worker to gathering signatures for a ballot initiative or advocating on a certain issue.
When it comes to all those expressions of citizenship, residents of Indiana rank highly compared to those of other states, or have improved in the past decade. The newly released 2021 Indiana Civic Health Index — a biennial study by the Indiana Bar Foundation, Indiana University, IUPUI, the Indiana Supreme Court, and state and national citizenship organizations — pinpointed those trends in Hoosier activities.
The Civic Health Index coalition also succeeded in working with the Indiana General Assembly to establish an Indiana Civic Education Commission and a requirement for all Hoosier middle schoolers to complete one semester of a civics education course. The Legislature eagerly etched those commitments into law last year.
Indiana’s looking good, right?
Well, there’s one more thing. Actually, it’s the biggest of all, when it comes to civic health.
Voting.
Indiana isn’t a leader in encouraging voter turnout. Actually, the politicians steering the state government are taking steps to inhibit voter turnouts.
In 2019, the Indiana Civic Health Index issued two recommendations. One led to the Civic Education Commission and the civics course for middle school kids. The second read, “As we head toward the 2020 elections, Indiana should aspire to increase voting turnout substantially, with the goal of moving from the Bottom 10 to the Top 10 of states.”
That didn’t happen. Indiana did experience a record turnout in 2020’s Biden-Trump election, but still lagged almost every other state. Indiana ranked 38th in the 2012 presidential election, fell to 41st in 2016 and then sank to 46th in 2020, the Index reports. Indiana modestly improved its midterm election turnouts, climbing from 48th in 2010 to 33rd in 2018, but that’s still in the bottom half. Voter registration rates rose a tick, from 65.1% of eligible adults in 2010 to 65.3% in 2019.
Indiana is way behind. It’s likely to stay that way. The one-party-ruled Legislature is more energized to increase barriers to voting than to increase voter turnouts.
A Republican-backed bill in the Indiana House is one of many examples. House Bill 1116 would require Indiana voters requesting a mail-in ballot to swear under the penalty of perjury that they won’t be able to vote in-person at any time during the 28 days prior to Election Day. As one of the few Democrats at the Statehouse pointed out, a single parent with multiple kids may have child care commitments and an inflexible work schedule, making it difficult to predict they’ll be able to get to the polls.
Tim Wesco, a Republican representative from Osceola who sponsored the bill, explained why at Statehouse hearing Tuesday, as reported by The Associated Press.
“I believe the best policy is to encourage people to vote in person, whether on Election Day or in-person early, as much as possible,” Wesco said.
Tonya Pfaff, a Democrat representing Terre Haute, wondered, “Why do you [or] why do I physically need to stand there and push a button, when I can spend time at home researching my candidates, seeing their policies? I don’t understand the philosophy of why I need to stand there.”
Well ... just because.
It’s not the nonexistent widespread voter fraud issue. After all, Indiana cast 600,000 mail-in ballots in 2020 (3 1/2 times more than in 2016) alongside 1.3 million in-person votes, and Republican incumbent Donald Trump — who falsely claims widespread voter fraud gave Democrat Joe Biden the presidency by 7 million votes — still solidly carried the Hoosier state. Republicans also gained state legislative seats, kept their supermajorities, and won an uncharacteristically tight congressional race and two other statewide races. So, clearly there’s no widespread voter fraud problem here to fix.
House Bill 1116 won’t help Indiana’s weak voter turnout track record, just like several other restrictive Indiana voting laws. The integrity of Indiana’s already-secure elections won’t change either.
“If you’re setting election policy in a state that’s mired in the bottom 10 for turnout, shouldn’t any change in policy be analyzed through a prism of whether it encourages or discourages turnout?” said Bill Moreau, president and founder of the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation and a contributor to the Civic Health Index.
Most Hoosiers want to avoid going to jail, and won’t risk having their personal calendar scrutinized over their decision to ask for a mail-in ballot.
There are several ways Indiana could encourage voting, just as other states have done successfully, Moreau said. Those include extending Election Day voting hours past 6 p.m., no-excuse absentee voting, automatic voter registration through any Bureau of Motor Vehicles transaction, same-day voter registration and mail-in voting. Alas, Indiana is “headed in the wrong direction” on such options, Moreau said.
Placing polling sites on college campuses would “undoubtedly” increase the youth vote, Moreau said. Vigo County set a good example in that category on Friday, when the Election Board retained a vote center at Indiana State University for the 2022 elections. Also, the state could promote voter registration among high school seniors. Some states allow 16- and 17-year-olds to “pre-register.”
“Study after study shows that if you get citizens engaged at an early age, they’re more likely to stay involved,” Moreau said. “You find very, very few first-time voters in the over-60 age group.”
Finally, legislative districts mapped out by the politicians representing some of those districts create uncontested and lopsided elections. In the Civic Health Index’s survey of nonvoting Hoosiers, 28.4% skipped going to the polls in 2020 because they “felt my vote wouldn’t make a difference.”
Indiana’s leaders should by trying to change those folks’ minds.
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