200 voters could be turned away from polling places

MUNCIE – As many as 200 Delaware County residents could be turned away from polling places Tuesday because their voter registration applications were not delivered on time, a state election official says.

Days after Indiana’s Oct. 6 deadline to register to vote, a package arrived in the Delaware County voter registration office containing about 200 applications, said Matt Tusing, Indiana’s deputy secretary of state.

He said most of the applications came from the Ball State University zip code and contained university e-mail addresses.

“They’re not registered,” Tusing said. “They’re not going to be registered because their applications didn’t meet the deadline.”

The registrations arrived by mail in an envelope postmarked Oct. 9. The envelope did not have a return address or any information identifying its sender.

Tusing said the Secretary of State’s office is suggesting that all voters, especially those who live on or near the Ball State campus and have registered to vote this year, confirm their registration through www.indianavoters.com.

“Make sure your name is on the voter list,” Tusing said.

In a normal year, local voter registration officials would have contacted the tardy applicants out of courtesy to notify them that they would not be allowed to vote.
But the Delaware County Voter Registration Office has been so busy this election season that it was unable to carry out that courtesy, Tusing said.

State officials said they are not certain that the 200 applications are even legitimate.
Tusing said the signatures on many of the applications looked similar, calling into question whether someone submitted fraudulent applications.

The Secretary of State’s office has not investigated the case further because the applications have already been dismissed on the basis of their late arrival.

Margie Landers, a Democratic member of the Delaware County Voter Registration board, said the applications have been kept in the registration office and will be processed after the Nov. 4 election.

Landers said she had not inspected the applications closely, but that at first glance they did not look suspicious to her.