Volunteers make final push to register voters
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Voting rights advocates say new voters tell them they’re signing up out of a sense of duty rather than a response to any one issue.
On a cool evening at the end of September, Barbara Tully and Lindsay Bledsoe made the rounds at the Indyvolved event at Victory Field. They carried voter registration forms and cards with QR codes to take people to candidate information pages. Most of the people they talked to had already signed up.
“There’s a lot of enthusiasm about the election, and so we’re really excited to see what actually happens in Indiana,” Tully said.
In the months that followed the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling, which overturned Roe v. Wade and ended federal protections for abortion rights, some states reported a marked increase in women registering to vote.
Data from the Indiana Secretary of State’s office show the state added roughly 87,000 new voters from January through early September. Another 191,000 updated their registration information. Men and women registered at roughly the same rate throughout the year, though new registrations hit a high of more than 15,000 in May.
Bledsoe, who is the vice president of the board for the Marion County League of Women Voters, says new voters haven’t indicated to her any one particular issue was driving them. Instead, she says, new voters cite a sense of civic duty.
“People get fired up during election years and so people just get excited more than anything,” Bledsoe said. “We don’t see a lot of controversy, we haven’t seen intimidation. We just see a lot of positive energy about voting.”
Bledsoe says voting is the best way to effect change, whether it’s at the national or state level or in your neighborhood. She said local issues were what drove her to become more politically engaged a couple of years ago.
Oct. 11 is the last day to register to vote. Early voting begins the following day. You need a driver’s license or some other form of state-issued identification to register. You can register online directly through the secretary of state’s Indiana Voters portal. Tully and Bledsoe say they strongly recommend researching candidates before you step into the voting booth.