Indiana State Police say the investigation that began in late August of 2016 alleging the filing of fraudulent voter application information has expanded from the original involved counties of Hendricks and Marion to also include the counties of Allen, Delaware, Hamilton, Hancock, Johnson, Lake and Madison.

As part of the expanded investigation, state police detectives obtained a search warrant for the business offices of the Indiana Voter Registration Project, located at 2425 North Meridian Street, Suite A, in downtown Indianapolis.  The search warrant was served mid-morning of Tuesday, October 4th.  The affidavit and search warrant are sealed for a period of 30 days from the time the warrant was granted, which was October 3, 2016.

Officials say an investigation of this nature is complex, time consuming and is expected to continue for several more weeks or months. According to a news release sent out this afternoon, State Police say important points related to this ongoing investigation include:

  • In accordance with state law, all voter registration applications received by Indiana voter registration offices are processed according to established policies.
  •  A representative sample of voter registration applications received by county voter registration offices suspected of being fraudulent have been COPIED and provided to state police detectives.
  • In all cases the ORIGINAL applications are maintained by the appropriate voter registration office.   The expanded number of counties involved leads investigators to believe the total of potentially fraudulent records may be in the hundreds, thus creating a potential to disenfranchise many voters.
  •   The possible fraudulent or false information is a combination of made up names and made up addresses, real names with made up or incorrect addresses and false dates of births with real names as well as combinations of all these examples.

Authorities say victims of the activities by some agents of the Indiana Voter Registration Project may not discover they have been disenfranchised from voting until they go to vote and realize their voting information has been altered.  Such action may result in the citizen having to cast a provisional ballot.

There are simple steps people can take now, before the election, to protect their right to vote by ensuring they are properly registered.  Visit this site and follow the directions to confirm you are properly registered:  https://indianavoters.in.gov

If after checking this source, a citizen discovers inaccurate information that indicates they could be a victim, they should contact their local voter registration office and the 24 hour Indiana State Police Voter Registration Application Fraud tip line of 888-603-3147.