Indiana to Implement New Procedures
for Offering Voter Registration to Public Assistance Recipients in the State
August 25, 2011
Indianapolis, Indiana – Today,
U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt approved the settlement of a class
action lawsuit brought against Indiana officials to bring the State into
compliance with the National Voter Registration Act (“NVRA”). The settlement requires that Indiana
implement specific measures to assure that thousands of low-income residents have
the opportunity to register to vote at state public assistance offices, as
mandated by the NVRA. The suit was
brought by the Indiana State Conference of the NAACP on behalf of all state
public assistance clients injured by the State’s violation of federal law. Plaintiff and the class are represented
by attorneys from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Project
Vote, Demos, the Chicago law firm of Miner, Barnhill & Galland, the NAACP,
and the ACLU of Indiana.
The NVRA requires that state
public assistance agencies offer voter registration to their clients when clients
apply for benefits, and when they recertify or submit a change of address. The State already began implementation of the settlement prior to its
approval by Judge Pratt, and the number of persons submitting registration
applications through state public assistance offices in recent months has
increased substantially. Monthly average registration applications are now
approximately 4,800, compared to only about 100 prior to the filing of the
lawsuit in July 2009.
“We are pleased that Indiana
has agreed to resolve this litigation through settlement,” said Barbara
Bolling, President of the Indiana NAACP.
“This is an important step forward to ensuring that all Indiana
residents have the opportunity to register to vote and participate in elections
in our State.”
The settlement sets forth the procedures
that Indiana must follow for distributing voter registration applications to
public assistance clients, both in its in-person transactions with these
clients and in those transactions that occur by mail, over the telephone, and
through the internet. The
settlement also institutes a variety of measures aimed at promoting and ensuring
compliance, including training, data collection, and monitoring.
“We look forward to working with Indiana officials
as they implement the settlement agreement,” said Robert Kengle, co-director of
the Lawyers’ Committee’s Voting Rights Project. “Thousands of Indiana’s citizens who have been traditionally
disenfranchised now will have the opportunity to register to vote, as Congress
envisioned when it passed the NVRA in 1993.”
“This agreement was a long time coming,
and represents an important victory for the voting rights of Indiana’s low-income
residents,” said Nicole Zeitler, director of the Public Agency Voter
Registration Program at Project Vote. “Public assistance agencies are a vital
component of the voter registration system, and reach citizens who are less
likely to register through other means.”
When the NVRA first was implemented in
Indiana, about 3,500 persons, on average, were submitting voter registration
applications each month at public assistance offices. However, by 2007-2008 (the last reporting period prior to this
suit being filed in July 2009), the number of persons submitting registration
applications at public assistance offices had dropped precipitously, to an
average of only about 100 a month.
This decrease occurred despite a large increase in the number of public assistance
clients in the State.
“Indiana’s example underscores that many states throughout the country
are liable to being sued because of their failure to properly implement voter
registration at state public assistance offices, as required by the NVRA,” said
Brenda Wright, Director of the Democracy Program at Demos. “We stand ready to
initiate litigation in many additional states that have not fully complied with
the NVRA’s requirements for assistance.”
In the past several years,
lawsuits filed by the same voting rights groups have forced other states that
had been disregarding the NVRA to comply, with dramatic results. For example,
applications from Missouri public assistance agencies skyrocketed, from fewer
than 8,000 a year to over 130,000 a year, following settlement of a suit in
that state in 2009. Almost 290,000 low-income Ohioans have applied to register
since a similar case was settled there at the end of 2009. Another case recently was settled in
New Mexico, and cases are pending in Georgia and Louisiana.
###
CONTACTS:
Nicole Zeitler, Project Vote, 202.271.5101
Kim Hayes, Lawyers’ Committee, 202.662.8318
Tim Rusch, Demos, 212.389.1407
Erika Laws, NAACP, 202.463.2940
ext. 1021