HuffPost: Indiana Can’t Kick Voters Off Rolls Without Warning, Appeals Court Says

A U.S. appeals court rebuked a new Indiana law that sought to aggressively cancel voter registrations, agreeing with a lower court ruling that blocked the law last year.

The Indiana law, passed in 2017, allowed election officials to cancel a voter’s registration without first getting confirmation from the voter. The officials could instead use Interstate Crosscheck, a database of voters from two dozen states, to see if the person was registered in another state. Even though there is evidence the Crosscheck database is unreliable, the Indiana election officials could cancel the voter’s registration if they found a registration matched that of a voter in another state. …

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Indiana chapters of three civil rights groups: the NAACP, the League of Women Voters and Common Cause.

“We are extremely pleased with this decision since it means that Indiana counties will have to follow federal law when maintaining their lists of registered voters and no Hoosier will be removed from the list without proper notice and a waiting period,” said Julia Vaughn, policy director of Indiana Common Cause. “Those safeguards are in the law for a reason and it is reassuring to know that Hoosier voters will be protected from unlawful purges in the future.”