Hoosier State Today

The Indiana Senate Elections Committee this week approved legislation that would provide state-funded voter-verified paper audit trail machines (VVPATs), a top legislative priority for Secretary of State Holli Sullivan. 

At the same time, the committee removed an absentee ballot restriction in the bill approved by the Indiana House, and but left other security measures in place.  

Sullivan, a Republican, said that the measure, House Bill 1116, would increase election security and confidence in voting even though there were few complaints of voting irregularities in Indiana during the 2020 general election.

“Every Hoosier deserves to know that their vote was accurately and securely cast,” Sullivan said in a statement. “This bill will ensure every voting machine includes a paper audit trail, allowing voters to independently verify their vote was correctly recorded. This visual evidence gives Hoosiers confidence by seeing paper confirmation of their vote.”

Voting rights groups, including the Indiana League of Women Votes, opposed the legislation.

“The bill would encourage Indiana counties with obsolete direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines to patch them with printers,” the groups wrote in a letter to committee members. “Indiana has wisely recognized the need for voting systems which provide paper ballots voters use to accurately verify their selections. But retrofitting DREs with printers is the wrong approach.”

The Elections Committee also approved an amendment that removes a House-approved provision from the bill that would have limited absentee voting to those who were unable to vote in person for an entire early voting period. The Senate change returns the language to current law, which says a mail ballot is allowed if the voter is unable to vote in person on Election Day.

Also in the bill is a mail ballot security provision that requires voters to provide a driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.

The legislation requires VVPATs for every direct-recording electronic voting machine in the state by 2024, but only if they received funding for the machines from the state.

In her statement, Sullivan said that the machines improve the state’s ability to conduct post-election audits and recounts.

She also noted that Indiana offered the option to request an absentee ballot digitally for the first time in 2020.

In the 2020 general election, Indiana saw an unprecedented number of absentee ballot applications. Nearly 250,000 of those applications were submitted electronically.