Indiana Kicks Voters Off the Rolls and Isn’t Telling Them - The Daily Beast

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A new law is letting the controversial interstate Crosscheck database comb election rolls—and remove voters without any attempt to contact them or allow a chance to respond.

Emilie Plesset

08.29.17 1:00 AM ET

You might not be able to cast a vote on Election Day in Indiana, and now the Hoosier State doesn’t even need to let you know.

A new Indiana law permits voters to be automatically removed from registration rolls without giving any notice or allowing for a waiting period for those purged to respond, and it could all be a mistake.

The statute, which went into effect last month, is in “flagrant violation” of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and operates with potentially “discriminatory results,” according to the Indiana State Conference of the NAACP and the League of Women Voters in a lawsuit filed last week.

“No Hoosier should be silenced on Election Day,” Barbara Bolling-Williams, president of the Indiana State Conference of the NAACP, said in a statement. “Yet, under this new law, that will happen. It’s vital that Indiana follow federal law and ensure that voters are not wrongfully removed from the rolls.”

The suit takes issue with Indiana’s now-unbridled use of the controversial Kansas-based Interstate Crosscheck System, a database used in 27 states to identify potential voters registered in multiple states by comparing voter names and dates of birth.

Indiana adopted the database in 2014, when it was ushered in by then-Gov. Mike Pence. Officials at that time had to notify voters that they were at risk of being removed from voter rolls. A voter was removed only if they failed to respond and vote in the next election.

Now voters can be immediately removed if their name simply pops up on the database.