Lentz
The Bartholomew County Clerk’s Office has canceled 942 inactive voter registrations this year as election officials conduct routine maintenance of voter rolls ahead of the upcoming presidential election.
The cancellations bring the total number of people removed from the county’s voter rolls to 5,188 since the 2022 midterm election, including 4,246 last year.
The people whose registrations have been canceled since 2022 had moved out of the county, died or were inactive voters who did not cast ballots in either of the previous two federal elections, officials said.
The maintenance is done annually to update the state’s voter rolls in what the Indiana Secretary of State’s Office says helps “counties improve the accuracy and integrity of Indiana’s voter registration list.”
As of Thursday, there were 52,911 registered voters in Bartholomew County, with 5,565 voters currently listed as inactive.
“It’s a long, lengthy process for someone to be canceled in the system,” said Bartholomew County Clerk Shari Lentz. “But as long as someone votes regularly, there’s no danger whatsoever of them being canceled in our system.”
The voter roll maintenance comes less than two months before early in-person voting starts in Bartholomew County for the upcoming presidential election.
County election officials have until Aug. 8 to complete the maintenance. The deadline to register to vote for the upcoming presidential election is Oct. 7.
“Inactive” status means that county and state election officials were unable to confirm the voter’s address. State election officials mail out postcards in odd-numbered years to all registered voters to confirm their address.
Having an “inactive” status does not mean a voter cannot vote, but rather that they did not update or confirm their voter registration address information, according to the Indiana Secretary of State’s Office.
“Once a person becomes inactive in the statewide voter registration system, they become active once they vote in any election or do any type of update in voter registration,” Lentz said. “The voter is moved to canceled after they do not do any type of update in the system and after the second general election has concluded and the voter did not vote in any election after becoming inactive. So far in 2024, we have moved 59 voters to an inactive status.”
Other states have similar processes to maintain voter rolls up to date, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
All states state remove dead people or those who have moved to an address in another jurisdiction from the active voter list.
As of last year, 48 states remove people convicted of certain crimes, 34 states remove voters who are determined by a court to be mentally incompetent and 20 states remove people who do not vote or otherwise engage with election officials for a certain amount of time, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Routine maintenance of voter rolls is “an important part of holding efficient and secure elections” and can protect against fraud, inform Election Day planning and budgeting, minimize wait times at the polls and reduce the number of provisional ballots cast, the conference states.
Local voters can visit indianavoters.in.gov or call the Bartholomew County Voter Registration Office at 812-379-1604 to verify the status of their voter registration.
