- It's not something we like to talk about, but Indiana is suffering from extremely low T. You know, low turnout.

According to the latest edition of the Indiana Civics Health Index released just last month, our state ranked 50th in the nation in voter turnout for the 2022 midterm election, down more than seven percentage points from four years earlier when we ranked a not so spectacular 43rd.

So what accounts for our state's chronic, and by most measures, worsening electoral dysfunction?

Is it simply part and parcel of being 207 years old, or is it the result of something more sinister, namely, an ongoing effort by Republican operatives to suppress voter interest and limit participation, especially among constituencies thought to favor democratic candidates?

I'm John Schwantes, and this is "Indiana Lawmakers," from the state house to your house.

(inspiring music) Republicans across the country have been working hard to tighten access to the ballot box and Hoosiers have been at the forefront of that effort.

In 2005, Indiana became the first state to require voters to show a government-issued photo ID at the polls.

Backers of the mandate cited a need to deter in-person voter fraud, even though they couldn't point to any pertinent examples of wrongdoing.

Democrats and voting rights groups challenged the measure, arguing that it was a thinly veiled attempt to disenfranchise poor, elderly and minority voters.

The US Supreme Court upheld the law in 2008, prompting a slew of other states to follow Indiana's lead.

That victory, however, didn't satisfy the Republican-controlled General Assembly.

In the years since, Hoosier lawmakers have made it easier to challenge voters at the polls, and to purge names from the voter rolls, largely without warning.

Unlike many other states, Indiana makes absentee ballots available only to voters who meet strict criteria.

It provides no offsite drop boxes to facilitate the collection of completed absentee ballots, and it shuts off voter registration 29 days before election day, the earliest date allowed under federal law.

This year, civil rights and privacy advocates are hoping to defeat or at least scale back House Bill 1264, a controversial election security measure that in its current form would A, allow state officials to purchase commercially available data, including credit reports to validate voter rolls, and B, require county clerks to use records from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to help verify the citizenship of first time voter registrants.

Do all these measures actually make our elections more secure and efficient?

If only we could ask Hoosiers that question at the voting booth.

Some voting rights activists contend that Republican controlled legislatures here and across the country are hellbent on erecting electoral hurdles, especially for democratic-leaning constituencies such as minorities, young people, and hourly workers with inflexible schedules that discourage in-person voting.

Policy makers on the other side of the debate argue that election integrity serves as the bedrock of our democracy, and that unchecked election fraud erodes essential public trust.

Here to weigh in on the issue are Democratic Senator JD Ford of Indianapolis, Minority Caucus Chair and ranking minority member of the Senate Elections Committee, Dr. Laura Merrifield Wilson, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Indianapolis, and a frequent commentator on political behavior, state and local government, and campaigns and elections.

Thank you both for being here.

We're gonna talk about some of the legislation pending in this session of the General Assembly, but let's talk about how we got where we are.

You know, we talked, mentioned in the open the Civic Health Index, and the numbers aren't kind to Indiana.

If you look at the most recent midterm in 2022, I think we had about 42% of eligible voters turn out, which was 10 percentage points below the national average, and that's not an aberration.

We sort of have been cellar dwellers, if you will, when it comes to voting for a decade or more.

Lemme start with you, Senator.

How did we get here?

What put us here?

- Yeah, you know, so you make a great point.

We used to be 43 for that voter participation turnout, and now we're 50 out of 51.

- [John] Going the wrong direction.

- Washington, D.C. included.

Yeah, going the wrong direction.

I think it all stems from gerrymandered districts.

And I was a part of that redistricting process as a member of the Minority Caucus.

You know, we traveled the state, we had hearings.

But we didn't actually have the maps to show people.

So the people that were seeing the maps, they were seeing the old maps, they didn't get to see the new maps.

And I think if people got to see the new maps, they would've been outraged.

Because we what we have, and this is, you know, happening on both sides of the aisle, so I wanna be fair in saying that.

Some of my colleagues put their name on the ballot, and they walk away with 60, 70, sometimes 80% of the vote just because of the simple letter behind their name, R or D. - If they have an opponent at all.

- Yeah, correct.

- Which isn't always the case.

- Yeah, 'cause some people look at that and be like, 75%, there's no way I'm gonna be able to win in that particular district, and we need fair and competitive districts.

And I think that is what creates the excitement.

And so I think this has been designed to be this way, this voter apathy.

I hear from people all the time, "Why bother?"

"Why should I care?"

And I always tell 'em, "Well, if we all think like that, then of course this is the results that we're gonna get."

But if you believe that your one vote, you are just as equal to a billionaire walking into that voting booth, that's what people need to believe in our state.

- And just a quick primer for those who haven't taken Dr. Wilson's introductory class on political science.

And Indiana is in other states after the decennial census, new maps are drawn by the party that controls the General Assembly.

- That's correct.

- Time-honored tradition.

When Democrats were in charge, they tried to squeeze everything out of it they could.

It's now that their computers and AI makes it a little bit more effective, one would seem.

Dr. Wilson, do you agree gerrymandering is perhaps at least partially to blame for low turnout here?

- It absolutely is.

And to Senator Ford's points, there's a lot of great scholarship that reaffirms this.

It seems that most of the competition now has shifted to the primary election.

So oftentimes you have the voters that are interested in participating in the primary election, you might have more extreme candidates.

They're gonna be rewarded in those primary elections, but then there's not even necessarily competition in the general.

And just the points made for voter apathy, you can imagine if you're a potential candidate and you consider incumbency advantage, and you're looking at your district, and you know that your district is overwhelmingly in favor of one political party.

You're from the other political party, and you look at the incumbent, and you look at the campaign finance, and you look in terms of voter turnout and everything else.

I think it also helps depress potential candidates from getting into the race from really considering running, because it does take a tremendous amount of effort.

So both in terms of voter turnout, but quite frankly candidate suppression, there's a lack of interest in participating, and at the end of the day, that's essential for democracy.

So to have an election where you only have one party represented or one candidate, regardless of the party or the race, you really don't have any meaningful choice in that.

- Because there are districts, we should point out, that even when Republicans have drawn the maps, that are safe democratic districts.

I mean, that's, I guess... - I'll also say, so that's the mother of all issues, I think, is that gerrymandering, that redistricting piece.

But then, you couple that with some of the policies coming out of the State House, that really put a lot of barriers, a lot of hurdles in front of Hoosiers.

And so I can understand and see why people may not want to vote, right?

I mean, if you're working at 12 hour shift, if you're a nurse and working a 12 hour shift, and the polls are open from 6:00 to 6:00, it's hard to get away, right?

So, you know, in our caucus, we've put forward measures to extend the voting hours by one hour to, you know, get away with those no excuses, when you have to put a excuse on to request your absentee ballot application.

- 'Cause here, you have to essentially be sick, or be willing to validate, under penalty of perjury that you are gonna be outta town or you are planning an illness, or I don't know how one plans an illness.

- So gerrymandering coupled with other policies that help make it more difficult for Hoosiers, I think is really what is at play here.

- And I do wanna get into all of those, but before we leave gerrymandering, and we could devote a whole show, we could devote an entire season of shows to that.

- That's right.

- What's the answer?

I mean, we don't like to bring up problems, but we, I mean, is it a bipartisan commission, as some states have tried?

Is it turning it over to an algorithm?

Is it letting a monkey in a dartboard in the basement do it, I mean, what are we... - I don't know about that.

I think, for us, and for our caucus, we have always put forward the Independent Redistricting Commission, you know.

And of course, I don't think we're ever gonna get politics out of this.

I think just people inherently have a view.

But when you also have people who are not legislators serving on this commission, they're less inclined to draw the districts based upon, you know, drawing where you can actually pick your voters.

Having people that are not legislators draw the district maps, and to make them competitive and fair, I think is huge.

- Now the state, I believe the state constitution requires the General Assembly to draw the maps.

Is that a barrier or is that simply a matter of having a commission do it, and then letting the General Assembly approve it?

- Well, we could change the Constitution.

I do think it's a challenge when you have the people- - That's later, we'll talk about that discussion later.

That's... - When the people who are making the decisions are directly gonna benefit from it, that's really hard.

And both parties can and will gerrymander.

I like the idea of the monkey throwing a dart at the dartboard, it's a zoo as the process is already.

- It's a growing caucus behind, you know, groundswell of support for that.

- Right, I wanna make sure I have that endorsement there, but I do think the states that use a non-partisan commission or a bipartisan commission, it is in voters' best interest certainly to have the most competitive districts where it's a 50/50 tossup.

The challenge is the people that'll be making those changes and decisions are the ones that are already inherently benefiting from the system.

And to ask someone to do that in politics just seems incredibly unrealistic.

- And now we'll go back to the other items that you mentioned, and you were talking about the duration that the polls are open, you know?

Here, it's, as the networks often know at 6:01 PM, they can often declare, you know, Indiana's going this way.

Oftentimes it's our 15 minutes, or 15 seconds of fame, I guess, every four years.

- Yes.

- Other things, you know, we don't have an extended early voting period.

I think it's about as short as federal law allows.

- [Sen. Ford] That's right.

- We were one of the first states, if not the first state in the country to require photo IDs.

I mean, which of these things, and there's a long list, I'm guessing, that you and your caucus could point to as being burdensome or overly burdensome.

Pick the ones that you see as potentially the most problematic in terms of voter turnout.

- Yeah, I mean, so I'll give you a good example.

In the 2020 election, I was on the north side at St. Luke's, which was one of the voting sites for Marion County.

And there was a woman who was standing in line, and she said, "I am going to stand in this line, as long as I can to go vote for whomever," whomever she was gonna vote for.

Unfortunately, she collapsed in the parking lot, and the medics had to come and get her.

And to me it's like, why is she standing in this line for four hours, sometimes even higher than that, when you can go up one county, and get in and get out, right?

And so, she mentioned that she was not 65, which was one of those excuses that you have to check.

I think she was maybe like 63 or 64.

But she was determined to stand in that line.

To me, I think that's the most egregious.

Because first of all, those excuses.

Why should we as citizens have to tell the government what we're doing on that particular day, number one, and number two, who is actually checking to see if that is in fact what you're doing?

So if you check, I'm gonna be out of the county.

Who from the elections division or the elections board, or the clerk's office is calling and saying, "Hey, Mr. Ford, are you really, in fact, out of the county this day?"

Nobody's doing that, and so why do we need to do that?

That is an extra hurdle, that's an extra barrier that we put in place to, again, I think, to disenfranchise voters.

- Now during COVID, we did as a state relax that requirement.

- We did.

- We did away with the rather stringent, it has to be one of, I think 11, you know, very specific excuses.

Do we know any, have any data or any sense of what that did to turnout?

Or is it... Could we not draw a conclusion simply because it's a pandemic, and maybe you can't draw anything about an unprecedented health situation?

- John, you sound like a social scientist.

I'd be like, well, your sample size is- - Is that compliment or are you insulting me?

I'm not sure.

- It's a compliment, coming from one.

Your sample size in terms of unit observation is one.

But that said, we did see an increase in terms of voter turnout.

And so, yes, it was a pandemic, it was a pretty wild election.

There are all sorts of reasons that could have influenced that voter turnout.

But no doubt, making it more accessible for voters, I think would have to be considered among those.

Now what would be interesting to see is, how does that change in 2024?

We have an election coming up this year.

Same candidates for president, obviously an exciting gubernatorial race, and some other things going on.

But with those restrictions now back in place, do we see that impact on voter turnout?

That's a variable that we wouldn't have been able to control for before that we can now.

I do think that's one of the challenges, but I'd also be remiss if we don't mention the concern about election security.

And that is that balance.

I would hope that everyone wants the elections to both be secure and accessible.

It doesn't feel like there's an easy way to address both of those things that satisfies all ideological perceptions.

- Real quickly, how safe are Indiana's elections now, would you say?

- Overwhelmingly.

- Overwhelmingly safe.

- There's always going to be some accounts of voter fraud.

It doesn't seem to be anything that is significant or substantial.

Critics would say we shouldn't have any.

And that would certainly be my preference too.

I would like to have everything perfect.

But they seem to be very secure.

I think our Secretary of State and our clerks at the county level take their job incredibly seriously.

They have the newest technology.

And I think just as you look in terms of voter fraud, and especially like, outside influences, if you think of other countries, the criminals may be always evolving, but so too is the technology and the people that are working on the policies.

So I think overwhelmingly, they are very safe.

Naturally there's going to be concerns.

- And I think historically, I was just gonna say, I think a lot of our fraud has been not in person voting and not registration, but actually signatures on ballots, in terms of candidates trying to acquire the necessary signatures.

That's where you see people emptying the phone book, and not even bothering to change the order of, as they appeared on the A's through Z.

- Yes.

No, I was just gonna simply add, and thank you for those points.

We didn't hear any problems from that mail-in voting, right?

And so I think sometimes critics are always saying that this is gonna invite massive amounts of fraud and problems.

That just wasn't the case in that particular election.

And in fact, there are other states that the sole purpose of what they do is mail-in voting.

I was able to tour Utah, which is a Republican dominated state.

And also the state of Washington, I went out to see how they do their operations.

And first of all, those, in state of Washington, you actually get a voter guide.

So a guide is mailed to you, and that kind of prompts you to realize like, oh yeah, it's time to vote, right?

We don't do that in our state.

I wish that we did.

And, you know, that mail-in.

There wasn't anybody standing in line.

Because people have already voted.

And so, I think, you know, I don't think we're close to that here in our state.

I wish that we were, but, but to Dr. Wilson's point, we just didn't see the fraud.

- And there are those who say, "Yes, they're safe, they're secure, but we could do even better."

And that in fact is what we heard from Tim Wesco, for instance, the representative who put forth 1264, House Bill 1264, which was probably the highest profile election-related bill this session.

Incidentally, we invited him to be on the program here and talk about the bill.

He wasn't able to join us.

Some people say that does, he would say in fact that that enhances security.

It makes sure that only citizens are voting.

It also, by checking certain BMV records, you know, temporary credentials for non-citizens, and making sure there's comparison there.

Also, another provision would allow the state to obtain commercially available data, credit reports, essentially, to help make sure that the voter rolls, which would be a first for the state of Indiana.

What's wrong with that?

It's now through Senate committee.

- Yes.

- You're on that committee.

- I am on that committee.

- You were one of the three no votes.

5-4 though, so on it goes.

What's wrong with it?

- So, that particular bill, when we talk about gerrymandering, we talk about putting the extra burdens and hurdles up for Hoosiers, this is exactly what I'm talking about, particularly with this particular bill.

You know, and I would say, it is a little disappointing that, you know, no one from the majority party came today to defend their policies, right?

I mean, the whole point of this is to have a robust discussion.

So that's very disappointing.

But, you know, our caucus, we have a lot of amendments that we're gonna present on the floor of the Senate, because we weren't able to offer them in committee, out of respect for the chairman.

And, you know, and I'm looking forward to having that conversation.

- But who is harmed though?

I mean, if citizens, we know, the franchise is supposed to be the prerogative of citizens.

Either native born or naturalized citizens.

What's wrong with double-checking that?

- Well, I asked Representative Wesco and committee, "Where are we having issues?

Where are the problems?"

And was basically told that he doesn't have to present those issues.

He doesn't have to give the real life examples of where is this at?

Tell us where it's going.

Because I think, you know, once we understand where it's happening, then we can actually address the issue.

But to pass a statewide law that's gonna impact more than 2 million people potentially, is a sledgehammer to this particular topic.

And frankly, if we were really to go at this, why don't we take a scalpel, and be more precision, and be more fine in putting forward a solution?

- And Dr. Wilson, some people, voting rights act activists and advocates say that this could harm the homeless who don't have a traditional address that would show up in a lot of these reports, or even college students who might be on campus, and don't have time to collect their documentation.

How legitimate are those concerns?

- They're very legitimate.

They're absolutely valid.

And I think, again, this goes back to that balance between a concern for voter security and voter fraud, and also accessibility.

But I think to earlier points, we have to realize that this doesn't impact everybody in the same way.

So theoretically, right, this is for first time voters, these are also for confirming citizenship.

- In terms of the citizenship would be first time voters.

- Yes, exactly.

- The confirming rolls would be broader, I believe.

- Yes.

No, you're absolutely right.

No.

But I think like, when we think about this kind of policy, some people will be disproportionately challenged in that way.

And I agree with the senator's point.

I think it'd be very interesting to see what kind of outcome could this potentially have?

Is there a different approach to this?

And I don't know that there necessarily is.

I love looking at state comparisons, and I'm not sure that there's any state going about it quite in this way, which on one hand could mean that we are policy innovators, and we're trying something different.

We're onto an idea that nobody else has thought of.

But the Senate- - As we were with voter IDs in the first place, photo IDs, government-issued photo IDs back in 2005.

- Exactly.

And now another 35, including Indiana, 35 states that do that.

But it could also be that there's another approach that other states utilize that might be a better fit.

And the challenge in a short session for our state legislature is we have a very limited amount of time to be able to investigate, to deliberate, to discuss and debate these kind of ideas.

And that's unfortunate, because this would be a major piece of legislation if enacted.

- One bill related to elections, and perhaps to turnout that didn't get a hearing, would've basically prohibited government agencies from providing free or reduced fare, public transportation to the polls.

It didn't get a hearing, so I'm not suggesting that was going anywhere, but I mean... How do you interpret a bill like that?

Is there anything other than not getting people to the polls, I'm guessing?

- Yeah, you know, that bill was really difficult, because it's, you know, as we talk about voter participation, we want people to go vote.

Some people don't have the means, don't have the transportation means to go and do that, so sometimes they do have to hop on a bus to do that.

And to take that away from them was, it was very mean spirited, in my opinion.

- Well, rest assured they can do it.

They can hop on the bus, - Yeah, they can still do it.

- At least now, that bill didn't go anywhere.

- Take an Uber, Lyft, you know, whatever the case may be.

- And there were other election bills that didn't go anywhere.

There was one that would've had automatic voting.

Just essentially, if you have a driver's license, or if you have any interaction with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, you're good to go.

You know, we've seen same-day voting initiatives.

Another one that the democratic leader in the Senate, Greg Taylor offered was a joint resolution, which would have begun the process, and you alluded earlier to the fact that it takes a while to change the Constitution, Indiana, for better or for worse, to have a direct voter initiative, you know, the opportunity for voters to do what some states do, which is, hey, we don't like what the General Assembly has done or what they're not doing, and we're gonna change the Constitution and start the ball rolling ourselves, and in fact, one of our viewers or listeners, Lynn, had that very question, we've solicited questions, so when they come through, we're gonna ask Lynn's question.

Wants to know why, you know, they look at Ohio, which has addressed, for instance, reproductive rights issues.

And other states, Kansas, et cetera, et cetera.

And it doesn't just have to be about reproductive rights.

It could be, I mean, California we see about everything.

I mean, from tax rates to, I don't even know, I can't keep track of.

I think that's a pretty long list in California.

A, is that, do you see that ever happening here?

And B, what effect would that have on turnout, if people can initiate these types of issues?

- Sure.

Well A, it would require that constitutional change, and as you mentioned, that does take a- - Two successive, or independently elected General Assemblies would have to approve it even before it goes to voters for referendum.

- Which is an incredibly conservative process, but I can appreciate the founding fathers of the Indiana Constitution of 1851 wanna make darn sure, it wasn't just one time we agreed to make a change, we wanted to confirm that we would.

So constitutionally to change it would be very difficult.

I don't know that it would necessarily be impossible.

We have done it before.

But if we did it and include some of these mechanisms of direct democracy, like the initiative or referendum, it would be a game changer in terms of policy in the state.

Because you're allowing people to directly have a say in terms of policy, either vis-a-vis the initiatives, you bypass your state legislature entirely, you say, this is a policy I wanna see.

You're not waiting for 150 people in the General Assembly to agree with your concerns.

And then the referendum to be able to vote on that.

Now, I would say that when we look at legislative proposals versus popular initiatives, it tends to be the legislative proposals that have to go to voters pass more than the initiatives from voters.

Because a lot of times people trust their state legislature more than the average public, and I think that in of itself is fascinating.

But it would absolutely change what we have.

We don't have any of those mechanisms of direct democracy.

And so we are left with what our state legislature gives us in terms of policy, or when we have the opportunity to change the Constitution, going through that process.

- And the Constitution has changed here on occasion, otherwise you would not be sitting in a special session right now, had that not changed, it used to be every other year.

- That's right.

- We're all down to about a minute.

But A, do you think that that process would help?

And is it something you support, and is it feasible?

- Yeah, and I agree with the process of, you know, putting it through two different sessions to make sure that this is what we were gonna do.

I agree with Senator Taylor about the ballot initiatives.

You know, we see poll after poll that Hoosiers want some sort of policy reform on marijuana.

We see poll after poll, Hoosiers support a woman's right to choose.

And so, you know, but yet we go in a different direction.

And I just think, you know, taking the temperature of people out there, the people that we're serving is important.

And I think we should do that.

10 years from now, final word, are we better or worse statistically than we are now?

- Oh, I hope we're better, 10 years from now?

My goodness, yes, that's the goal.

- Same.

I'm hoping that, you know, that we, you know, elect people who are willing to put some of these policies in place to help with voter participation.

We need people to be engaged.

And we need people to pay attention to what's going on at the State House.

- Optimism's always a good thing.

- Yes.

- Thank you for being here to talk about something very important to the state.

- Thanks for having us.

- Yeah, thank you.

- Elections, it doesn't get fundamentally more important than that.

Again, my guests have been Democratic Senator J.D.

Ford of Indianapolis, and Dr. Laura Merrifield Wilson of the University of Indianapolis.

(inspiring music) Stylists who maintain that shades of green almost always go together apparently haven't had much exposure to ongoing environmental disputes in the General Assembly.

On the next "Indiana Lawmakers," we'll look at the clash between nature's hue and the color of money.

Time now for my weekly conversation with commentator Ed Feigenbaum, publisher of the newsletter, Indiana Legislative Insight, part of Hannah News Service.

Ed, you were an election expert before you even were newsletter publishers.

- But that was before AI, and now AI is- - Well, that's right.

That's right, but you know the subject of elections backward and forward.

What, of the bills that are pending this session, what do you think is the most significant?

- Well, the most significant, obviously, is the one that that's proposed by Representative Tim Wesco, who's chair of the Elections Committee in the House.

And that would change the way that we register voters and look at at their backgrounds, and do some of those kinds of things.

And there are some groups like Common Cause that are a little bit concerned about, perhaps we're asking a little bit too much of these people that the federal law may not allow us to do, or should not let us do.

- There's some concern about the mixing, for instance, of credit reports and commercially available data with... - And immigration status.

- Immigration, certainly.

- All those kinds of things.

But we've also seen that back, you know, 15 years ago, we were concerned about, or some of these groups were concerned about voter ID.

And now voter ID, which started in Indiana, the mandatory voter ID, picture IDs, has spread to the rest of the country, it's accepted.

Nobody really questions it these days.

And so, I think a lot of these concepts that, you know, start with a lot of skepticism, perhaps appropriately, you know, have become mainstream and the norm today, and, you know, doesn't necessarily suppress the vote.

I don't know that you could say that about voter ID now, based on all the studies that we've seen.

We have lots of real world experience.

- Do we ever finish this process of election reform and ensuring secure elections?

I mean, it seems that you point out the legislation in 2005 when we were the trailblazers, but we've done a lot of other things since then to enhance security.

When is enough enough?

- Well, sometimes if you go back to the future, you know, we're talking about paper ballots as well.

And then you start getting into the question of, well, wait a minute, we got rid of paper ballots, not only because of the time involved, and the fact that you couldn't necessarily finish these things on election night like everybody wants now, you know, it's the microwave's not fast enough to cook our food.

We want our election results before the polls close, but wait, we don't want the polls that we've taken, you know, voters coming in, to determine the results of the election.

So again, you've got all those kinds of things coming back to bear on us, and paper ballots, you've got the problems with short penciling and things like that that people can commit fraud with.

So yeah, everything is what it has been before, it's coming back to haunt us, and we, you know, are we destined to make the same mistakes?

- Can't wait to hear how artificial intelligence deals with hanging chads.

So that's a good conundrum.

Ed, as always, appreciate your insight.

- Thank you, John.

- Well, that concludes another edition of "Indiana Lawmakers," I'm John Schwantes, and on behalf of commentator, Ed Feigenbaum, WFYI Public Media, and Indiana's other public broadcasting stations, I thank you for joining us and I invite you to visit wfyi.org for more State House news.

Until next week, take care.

(inspiring music)