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A federal judge is blocking a new program that would allow state officials to purge voter data from Indiana’s election rolls.
The ruling, issued Friday by U.S. District Court Hon. Judge Tanya Walton Pratt, temporarily bars the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program from going into effect.
The Crosscheck Program is meant to prevent elections fraud and double voting- where voters are registered in two states and vote in both.
The Program originated in Kansas in 2005, and has since spread to 27 states.
Cross Check scans state’s voter registration rolls and eliminates duplicate voters; people who show up on multiple state voter registrations. The program has been criticized for knocking legitimate voters off of voter registrations. A Harvard study published last Fall found that, for every one duplicate voter knocked off of voter registration programs, Cross Check knocked 200 legitimate voters off of voter registration rolls. Three states have recently signaled they would drop implementation of Cross Check, due to voter registration concerns. The Indiana Chapter of the NAACP also alleges African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians are more likely to have similar names, and the Cross Check Program would unduly those voters.
Indiana joined the Cross Check Program in April, 2017. Hon. Judge Pratt’s decision to halt the implementation of the program sided in favor of the government watchdog group Common Cause. Common Cause has signalled it will continue pursuing its lawsuit against Secretary of State Connie Lawson’s Office over the implementation of Cross Check.
The Secretary of State’s office is the defendant in the case due to the fact that the secretary is the highest ranking election’s official in the state.
Jan Mensz is an attorney with the Indiana branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Common Cause in the suit. He says one of the primary arguments in the case was Crosschek’s alleged tendency to strike voters from rolls.
According to existing federal law, voters can be purged from voter rolls only if they’ve formally confirmed that they have moved. Voters can also be removed if they don’t respond to a written notice and neglect to cast a ballot for two consecutive general election cycles, or about four years.
Common Cause and the Indiana ACLU argue that the Crosscheck program is a violation of the National Voter Registration Act. The Act was established in 1993, and governs current federal regulation on voter registration.
In a written statement, Secretary of State Connie Lawson’s office said, “We have never had a voter come forward who was incorrectly removed from the list. We are currently working with our attorneys to review our options moving forward. We respectfully disagree with the ruling.”
Judge Pratt’s ruling puts implementation of the Crosscheck Program on hold for Indiana. According to Mensz, both the Indiana ACLU and the Secretary of State’s Office will be conducting discovery for the upcoming trial. During discovery, parties in the case will collect testimony and evidence to support their arguments in the upcoming hearing. When that hearing will be held, however, is unknown.
Friday’s decision from Hon. Judge Pratt came shortly before the Supreme Court handed down a ruling on a similar case in Ohio. In a 5-4 decision this week, with The Supreme Court splitting down party lines, the Court ruled that Ohio is allowed to purge its voter rolls.
Plaintiffs in the case argued that, although Ohio followed the National Voter Registration Act, it did not have a right to purge voter rolls. Ohio wanted to remove voters who had not voted for six years and who had failed to confirm their Ohio addresses.
Mensz says the Ohio case ruling may support Common Cause and the Indiana ACLU in their legal fight. He said by reaffirming the importance of the National Voter Registration Act in its Ohio decision, the Supreme Court set precedent for the case against Indiana’s Cross Check Program.
Since its introduction, several states have dropped out of the Cross Check Program, citing fears over voter security and privacy.
