Indiana county registers noncitizen to vote even after he marks 'No' on citizenship question

Democrat county can't explain why an INDIAN national was added to the voter roll when he marked that he was not a citizen; Say they can't check check voter roll for noncitizens until next year

A Democrat county in Indiana registered a man to vote even though he marked on the voter registration form that he was not a citizen.

The man, who asked that his name be withheld, is from India.

He came to Indiana on a student visa in the fall of 2017 to attend Indiana University, graduating in 2019. From 2020 until 2023, he worked for the university on an H1-B visa.

He says he attended a meeting in 2023 where someone was passing out the voter registration forms, and filled one out.

He checked the box on the form that he’s not a citizen of the United States, but when he looked this year, he found his name had been added to the voter roll.

He says he called the Indiana Secretary of State’s office, and was sent a form to fill out to cancel his registration.

He took this to the voter registration office in Monroe County, where he resides, and they removed him from the roll.

But why was he ever registered in the first place? And how many other noncitizens are on the roll?

He and I went to the Monroe County, Indiana, elections office to find out.

The election supervisor for the county, Kylie Farris, could not give us answers to either of these questions.

“This one was in 2023. So I was not here at this time,” she said, “So it’s going to be best for you to have a conversation with Clerk Brown [Nicole Brown, the county clerk].”

“We cannot check about citizenship until July 1, 2025,” she said when asked what the office is doing about other noncitizens who may be on the voter roll.

Farris was referencing the bill that was passed by the Indiana General Assembly on February 29 that requires county election officials to cross reference their voter rolls with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, to identify any noncitizens who may be on the rolls.

That law goes into effect on July 1, 2025.

“We cannot check until July 1st of 2025. It is the law that we cannot check for citizenship,” said Farris.

County Clerk Nicole Brown did not return a call on Friday afternoon.

The man from India who was placed on the voter roll even after marking that he was not a citizen says he doesn’t understand how the United States can have such a system. In India, he has to have a voter ID card to vote.

“We have to apply for that to get that,” he said. “If I don’t enter the voting center with this, they’re not going to let me vote.”

Three documents have to be submitted to get a voter ID card in India, and it’s impossible to get one if you’re not a citizen, he says.

There’s no such thing as absentee voting or mail voting in India, except in exceptional circumstances.

Monroe County is the home to Indiana University, and is one of just five counties in Indiana that voted for Joe Biden over Donald Trump in 2020.

It is almost tied with Marion County (Indianapolis) as the most Democrat county in the state.

According to the website of Indiana University, as of the fall of 2024, there are 5,042 foreign students enrolled at the main campus in Bloomington, in Monroe County — 38 percent from India, 18 percent from China and 9 percent from South Korea (the rest are from various other countries).

There are many additional foreign nationals living in the county who are employed by the university or have spouses who are students or staff at the university. Many of them have driver’s licenses and some have social security cards.

It’s unknown how many of them are registered to vote in the county and may have already cast votes in the 2024 election.

“It’s basically an honor system,” says Jerry Bonnet, chief counsel in the Indiana Secretary of State’s office.

When I ask if we know how many noncitizens may be on the voter roll in Indiana, he says No.

“We don’t know if there are any pilots who don’t have training or any doctors who didn’t go to medical school,” he says.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita and Secretary of State Diego Morales recently sent a letter to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services requesting citizenship status on 585,000 people on the voter rolls in Indiana who don’t have a Real ID.

This information is not expected to be provided before the Nov. 5 presidential election, however.