INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -
After initially warning of potential widespread voting fraud, Indiana’s
secretary of state has acknowledged that many of the thousands of altered
registration records she flagged might just be residents rushing to correct
their names or birth dates ahead of the election.
Republican
Secretary of State Connie Lawson told The Associated Press she wanted
Indiana State Police to investigate to ensure there was no widespread fraud
after her office found a heavier than usual number of changes to voter
registration records this election cycle.
"It’s very possible
that because of heightened activity this year that many of those changes are
changes that the individual made,” Lawson said Wednesday. “... That should
give Indiana voters the comfort that we are vigilant and we are protecting
their rights and the elections here are not rigged.”
Indiana is the home
state of Gov. Mike Pence, the Republican vice presidential nominee, and also
has contentious races for governor and U.S. Senate on the ballot.
State police
reassured residents in a statement Wednesday that the database Indiana uses
to track voter registration “has not been compromised” but said the records
Lawson turned over could serve as evidence of forgery in a separate voter
fraud investigation it is pursuing. That investigation spans 56 counties and
focuses on Patriot Majority USA, a Washington, D.C.-based voter mobilization
group with ties to the Democratic Party that says it’s being targeted for
political reasons.
Scrutiny of state
voting systems across the U.S. has been heightened ahead of the Nov. 8
election. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has repeatedly said
the election could be “rigged.” Pence hasn’t gone that far but has urged
supporters to carefully watch polling stations to guard against
irregularities.
“Voter fraud cannot
be tolerated by anyone in this nation,” Pence said during a campaign stop
this week in Ohio. “So I encourage you, demand that our public officials are
upholding the integrity of the vote.”
The secretary of
state’s office has refused to reveal how many individual voter registrations
it has flagged to state police, saying only that the number is in the
thousands. Lawson says her office conducted a review of the state voter
database after receiving phone calls from an unspecified number of concerned
citizens who were unable to access their online voter information or found
inaccuracies in it.
“We stated that
there were thousands of changes and we are not going to make any assumptions
that they are all legitimate or all fraudulent,” Lawson said.
But other state
elections officials said voter registration changes are not only routine but
common.
County clerks
around the state, who are responsible for entering voter data in the state’s
system, could make a data entry error while processing a crush of
registrations. Or someone may be registered as Robert but search for their
registration online using the nickname Bob, said Angie Nussmeyer, a
co-director of the election division of Lawson’s office.
A public records
request filed by the AP shows Nussmeyer’s Republican counterpart in the
elections division, Brad King, was looped in on emails from Lawson’s office
and state police about the initial investigation in September, as was Pence
aide Shelley Triol. Nussmeyer, however, says she was not.
Democrats say this
is evidence that the probe is partisan in nature.
Julia Vaughn,
policy director for the nonpartisan government watchdog group Common Cause
Indiana, said that before Lawson makes allegations of possible fraud her
office “should make sure the voter file records haven’t been altered through
software snafus or human errors made by people in county or state agencies.”
“There is almost no
history of this kind of fraud here so her response helps to fuel irrational
claims by Donald Trump and others that the election will be stolen through
voter fraud,” Vaughn said.
A spokeswoman for
the FBI’s office in Indianapolis, Wendy Osborne, said that the agency was
aware of the questions raised regarding voter registrations in the state.
But speaking Wednesday afternoon, she added that state authorities had not
asked for assistance in investigating the matter.
Public documents
explain that the FBI can participate in investigations into voter
registration fraud, or whenever ballots that list candidates for president
or for Congress are an issue. Before elections, FBI offices nationwide also
designate agents to serve as liaisons with local law enforcement and state
election officials should federal help be needed.