TERRE HAUTE, Ind.
(AP) - Indiana counties acting under a directive from the state have purged
their voter registration rolls of people who are inactive and have not cast
ballots since 2014.
The Indiana
Election Commission set a March 10 deadline for counties to remove inactive
voters, and several reduced their rolls by at least 10 percent, the (Terre
Haute) Tribune Star reported Saturday.
Parke County got
rid of 2,188 registered voters, or 19.6 percent of its total. County Clerk
Stacie Jeffries said she missed the state’s deadline by a week but got the
job done. A Republican Party caucus appointed her to the post after the
previous clerk left office Jan. 18.
“I am just glad it
is not an election year,” Jeffries said.
Vermillion County
dropped 1,183 voters, or 13.2 percent of its registration list. Since the
purge, it has added 246 more voters.
“We register people
to vote every day,” Vermillion County Clerk Amy Griffin said.
Vigo County removed
7,960 voters, or 10.5 percent of its registration role. With five colleges
and universities - Indiana State University, Rose-Hulman Institute of
Technology, Ivy Tech Community College, St. Mary-of-the-Woods College and
Harrison College - a portion of its electorate moves away after finishing
studies.
College towns are
often “where people move in and people move on,” said Robert Lawson Jr.,
co-director of the Vigo County Voter Registration department.
Some “people vote
one time and never vote again after registering and move away, but never
remove their name from the poll list,” Lawson said.
The General
Assembly adopted the mandatory voter roll purges in 2014, two years after
two voter watchdog groups, Judicial Watch and True The Vote, sued Indiana,
claiming the state failed to maintain clean voter registration lists.