New Indiana election laws face court challenges over their constitutionality

Two Indiana election laws that went into effect this summer are being challenged in federal court, with voting-rights advocates arguing that they disenfranchise young and naturalized voters.

One federal judge already has given some hope to the plaintiffs in a case against Senate Enrolled Act 10, which was passed this spring and bars the use of state-issued student IDs as a proof of identification at polling locations, something that had been allowed for 20 years in Indiana.

The court dismissed Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales and Indiana Election Commission Chair Paul Okeson’s motion for dismissal last month, saying the plaintiffs—several voting rights organizations and an Indiana University student—had provided a plausible argument that SEA 10 could discriminately burden young people from voting.

Morales took another hit in October, after more voting rights advocates sued him over House Enrolled Act 1680, a state law passed in May that prevents voter registration for anyone using a temporary-credential ID issued by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, unless they also show proof of citizenship at the time they register.

“We warned legislators that if they persisted in passing these laws, they would face a legal challenge, and that’s exactly what’s happening,” Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, a nonpartisan organization that promotes individual freedoms and one of the named plaintiffs, said in an interview with The Indiana Lawyer.

Vaughn hinted that more challenges to other sections of HEA 1680 could be on the horizon in the coming months, but she did not provide any specific details on what those arguments would be.

Student IDs

On March 12, Josh Montagne, an IU sophomore, stood before the Indiana House Committee on Elections and Apportionment and urged legislators not to vote in favor of SEA 10.

Although Indiana-based student IDs had been allowed as voting ID since 2005, supporters of the change have argued that, because the cards do not directly prove state residency, they pose a security risk.

For Montagne, a Missouri native who has voted in multiple elections since moving to Indiana for college, his student ID is his only state-verified credential.

When asked by one committee member why he has not obtained a state driver’s license, Montagne simply responded, “Because I don’t have a car.”

But opposition from college students was not enough to prevent the measure from being signed into law by Gov. Mike Braun.

In May, a lawsuit was filed against the new provision on student IDs, arguing that it violates the 26th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by directly targeting students and “deliberately” abridging young voters’ right to vote.

The lawsuit also contends that the law violates the First and 14th Amendments because it “severely burdens” one specific class of voters.

The state moved to dismiss the case in July, saying SEA 10 “does not put an undue burden” on the right to vote because there is “no requirement to give special treatment to students” attending university.

That argument reflects one that SEA 10’s author, State Sen. Blake Doriot, R-Goshen, used when he faced questions about the proposal at committee hearing earlier this year.

“I don’t believe we’re disenfranchising them (students),” Doriot said. “We’re requiring them to do the very same thing that other residents in the state of Indiana do to get an identification to vote.”

But one skeptical federal judge didn’t buy that reasoning.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Young wrote in the court’s order to deny dismissal that he finds the plaintiffs have “sufficiently alleged that SEA 10 will impose at least a ‘somewhat heavier burden’ on students and young voters.”

Are Indiana elections secure?

Supporters of Indiana’s more restrictive voting laws are confident that they would make Indiana elections more secure

In the March committee meeting on SEA 10, State Rep. Kendell Culp, R-Rensselaer, said that Indiana currently has “no way of verifying if a student votes in two different states.”

“This just adds one extra little insurance that they have to have this state-issued ID,” Culp said. “The institutional ID, from the university, that does not prove residency.”

Rep. Timothy Wesco, chair of the House elections committee and sponsor of SB 10, did not give The Lawyer a statement on why he supported the bill.

Opponents of the legislation have consistently held that there is no evidence to support the need for changes to the state’s election laws.

“The laws we already have in effect are effective,” Vaughn said. “This is not a problem.”

Key political figures have maintained for years now that widespread election fraud is a serious concern in the country. President Donald Trump, who has been one of the primary critics of U.S. voting methods, has said in recent months that the country’s elections are still “rigged.”

“We have bad borders; we have very bad elections,” Trump said on a radio show in September, ahead of this year’s various elections. “We have a bad voting system.”

Andrew Garber, counsel for the Brennan Center, a nonpartisan law and policy institute, disagrees.

“There’s so much research, so much evidence showing that only eligible American citizens are voting in our elections, that impersonation at the polls or by mail ballot is not widespread, and that we can have extreme trust and confidence in the outcome of the election,” Garber told The Lawyer. “America is more likely to be struck by lightning than commit voter fraud.”

According to a database run by the Heritage Foundation, the right-leaning think tank behind Project 2025 (the political roadmap crafted last year to advance a more conservative government), there have been about 1,400 successfully reported election fraud cases in the country since 2000.

The foundation also found Indiana has had 59 cases of election fraud since 2003—the first year with a reported case.

Most recently, in 2022, the state was subject to two cases of voter fraud, both resulting in criminal convictions.

According to Indiana Secretary of State data, over 1,881,560 voters cast a ballot in 2022’s general election.

Growing restrictions

A recently published annual report from the Brennan Center examined all of the country’s election-related laws approved in the past year and noted which states had made it harder or easier for voters to cast a ballot.

As of early October, 16 states had enacted a combined 29 “restrictive” voting laws—which Garber defines as putting up barriers between citizens and their ability to cast their ballot. Those numbers are on par with 2021, which Garber said saw a spike in both restrictive and expansive voting laws.

Typically, expansive voting legislation outweighs restrictive ones, but this year has seen “a lot less effort” to expand voting access as compared to the last few years, Garber said.

Three Indiana laws enacted this year meet the Center’s criteria for restrictive voting laws: SEA 10, HEA 1680 and HEA 1679, which requires county voter registration offices to conduct a voter list maintenance program.

Based on the center’s criteria, Indiana did not enact an election expansion law this year.

New challenges

Concern about voter fraud also was the reason cited for the passage of HEA 1680 earlier this year, which instituted a new current-voter citizenship crosscheck requirement to compare Indiana’s statewide voter registration file with the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles’ database to identify which registrants were issued a temporary credential, like a temporary driver’s license.

The BMV issues temporary cards to individuals who are considered noncitizens but are still lawfully in the U.S. Noncitizens with a temporary credential who become naturalized citizens are not required to obtain a new, permanent ID, Vaughn said.

According to the new law, anyone who provides a temporary credential when they register to vote must also provide proof of citizenship status in their registration application.

“Our concern is that people who are citizens are going to be misidentified as non-citizens and forced to jump through some hoops, and if they don’t, they will be removed from the voting rolls,” Vaughn said.

Common Cause Indiana and several other voting rights organizations filed its lawsuit against Morales late October, arguing that HEA 1680’s documentary proof of citizenship to register or to remain registered to vote violates the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“The National Voter Registration Act and the civil rights laws say that it can’t treat voters differently. And clearly, this law treats naturalized citizen voters and native born citizen voters very differently, and so we believe this is a clear violation of federal law,” Vaughn emphasized.

No response has been filed by Morales as of this writing. A spokesperson for Morales did not immediately respond to a request for comment.•