A Democratic-aligned group at the center of an Indiana investigation into possible voter fraud said Thursday it focused on registering black residents of Indiana because the state had the nation’s lowest overall voter turnout in 2014.
Patriot Majority USA has ties to the Democratic Party, including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and former president Bill Clinton, and is one of a host of organizations doing political work on both the right and left that are not required to disclose their donors.
According to its 2014 tax return, the most recent available, the group had $30.5 million in revenue that year and spent $13.6 million on political activities, but donors were not disclosed. Between 2009 and 2012, the last years the group disclosed donors, it received $2.2 million from labor unions, according to Federal Election Commission figures, including major contributions from teachers and public employee unions.
The group’s president, Craig Varoga, said in an interview with The Associated Press that Patriot Majority has run voter registration drives in 11 states over the past several years. He said it focused solely on Indiana this year and registered black voters beginning in May.
“There are large numbers of African-Americans who are unregistered and everything should be done to help them,” he said.
By the time Indiana State Police raided the group’s Indianapolis office on Oct. 4, a week before the state registration deadline, Varoga said the group had collected about 45,000 voter registration applications. Most of those were completed during door-to-door visits in nine counties with large African-American populations, he said.
Indiana reliably votes Republican in presidential years, except for 2008 when a high black turnout helped President Barack Obama win the state. This year, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is Donald Trumps’ GOP running mate, but a higher African-American turnout might help Hillary Clinton as well as Democrats in competitive races for the U.S. Senate and governor.
State Police have said they are investigating whether some voter registration applications submitted by Patriot Majority contained elements of fraud, including possible forged signatures.
Indiana’s Republican Secretary of State, Connie Lawson, raised alarm on Tuesday when she warned of widespread voter registration fraud, saying thousands of records had been altered. But she backed off somewhat Wednesday, acknowledging that the changes could just be residents correcting their names or birth dates online ahead of the election.
Varoga said some voter registration applications the group submitted to county clerk’s offices were missing information, but none were fraudulent, and Patriot Majority had flagged applications it knew were incomplete.
“Her voter file is a mess and poorly maintained,” Varoga said of Lawson’s comments. He said the GOP official is “relying on a flawed database to mischaracterize a law-abiding effort to register voters in the state.”
Lawson said in a statement Thursday that her office began working in 2014 to make sure the data on the “voting list in Indiana were accurate.”
Attorneys for Patriot Majority have asked the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights division to look into whether the State Police investigation is an attempt to suppress the votes of black residents.
Indiana’s 28.7 percent voter turnout in the 2014 midterm elections was dead last among all 50 states, according to an analysis by Michael McDonald, an associate political science professor at the University of Florida. Nationwide, turnout that year was the lowest of any election since 1942.
Despite sharing common goals and partisan affiliation, Indiana Democratic Party officials distanced themselves from Patriot Majority Thursday and said they have never coordinated their voter registration efforts with the group.
Peter Hanscom, the party’s coordinated campaign executive director, said the party wasn’t even aware Patriot Majority was operating in Indiana until news of the state police probe.
Emily Shrock, the Democratic Party’s Director of Voter Protection, said if the Patriot Majority investigation ultimately shows that “they are doing something wrong, they should be prosecuted.”
Patriot Majority’s focus on black voters in Indiana did not come as a particular surprise to Bernard Fraga, an assistant professor of political science at Indiana University Bloomington who has studied minority voting habits.
He said the group may simply be trying to fill a gap as the presidential campaigns focus their attention in other states that are more competitive.
Fraga estimates blacks comprise as much as a fifth to a quarter of Indiana’s Democratic voting bloc.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if this group comes in and sees an opportunity to improve the chances of the Democrats, whom they seem to tend to favor, by registering this bloc in a way that the (presidential) campaigns just aren’t doing right now to the same degree,” Fraga said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Betty L. Smith says
I’m saying like Trump says, the election is rigged, and this article above proves that is true, but why back off from saying it isn’t. The Democrat’s have always rigged the election’s. Look what happened to Romney in 2012. I live in Florida and we have 67 counties, and they said there were cities in these counties where Romney didn’t get one vote. Come on. This can’t be real. These people wanted another term for Obama and they got it through hook and crook just like it will be with Clinton. She isn’t the nice lady everyone thinks she is. If you could hear some of the older Secret Service men talk about the names she called them, threw things at them, and how they detested her. She was no lady when she was First Lady. One man said she called him a Motherf——-. Chris Wallace let her get by without finishing the question he asked about The Clinton Foundation. She is a crook, hates women, and I believe she hates all of us who are Trump fans. If she wins we are in trouble again like we have been with Obama for 8 years.
lizaz says
Or it will be WORSE…….
Daniel says
The mainstream media has poisoned the minds of the American people toward Trump with having the women that are liars Tell their story for days while showing Wekileaks information about Hillary’s proven disqualified candidacy. For only 57 seconds. When Hillary wins the election, it will be the American people that lose. That will be the beginning of the end.
Read your bible, the end time are upon us now.
Justin W says
Blacks need to realize the Democrat Party is using them to gain power but has little interest in truly helping blacks once they gain power. Current welfare programs have done more to create a generation of blacks who are dependent on the government. We need to change mentalities. We need to encourage blacks to be self sufficient and prosper. That doesn’t help the politicians in the long run but it will make a world of difference for the blacks.
Chino says
Obama and Hillary Clinton both are crooked they will stop at nothing to keep the power not to help the country but to help themselves how much money do they keep stealing and they will destroy this country..
Adorable Deplorable says
I seem to remember certain key districts in “swing states” reporting 100% (or MORE!) voter turnout and not a single vote for Romney. How is that even possible unless there was blatant fraud? Dead people have been voting (multiple times!) in Chicago and other democrat controlled areas for decades. There was a voter in NC in 2012 who bragged that he voted 8 times in 4 different districts.
I have been resident at the same address for over 40 years and have voted in every election in that time. I know who my neighbors are and can tell pretty much by the yard signs present what the ratio SHOULD be. The result has rarely tallied with those outward indicators, and I pay VERY close attention to them. I know there is significant voter fraud and it has been done for many decades. The difference now is that it can be done electronically without even setting foot in a polling station.
We will have to wait and see what happens on Nov. 8th before this discussion can be brought up to date. I am waiting with much trepidation that the current status quo will persist and the US we have known and loved will be falling further into a pit from which it will never escape or recover.
TROSE says
Catholics get out and vote- We can get Trump in just through our votes. Christians, Trump needs your votes, too. If she and Obama gets their way we will have no religious rights. No Constitution or anything good. Abortion is murder of an innocent baby! Those babies have a right to life and people out there would gladly adopt them. We save animals so we are capable of saving children, too. The candidates other than the presidential ones are just as important if not more so-your votes are needed at the state levels, too. GET OUT AND VOTE!
Joe says
They aren’t babies! Check with a real medical doctor, an in biased one, and you will see they aren’t babies but are a fetus. I agree with you on all but this!!
Debbie T says
Joe, I have to disagree with that. Two days before due date and you can abort?!! That is a BABY! Hillary is for third semester abortions. That is Killing, Murder and Abominable!! This CAN NOT be allowed. You do realize that they go in at the beginning of the abortion, they puncture the skull then suck their brains out. They then remove the body because the head is collapsed. Do you think that that baby doesn’t feel that? .Do you know why the Medical Practice has that specific title? Because they PRACTICE on us!
vickie says
Trump was talking about partial birth abortions which can be done until the woman goes in labor. In partial birth abortions, the BABY is delivered all but it’s head, which the murderous doctor inserts scissors into the babies brain, killing it. AND right up to the 9th month. Thus is it a baby!
Dr. Tanya Hazelton says
I was involved in True the Vote in 2008. There were HUGE discrepancies on the voter registration lists that hopefully got tossed out. The Democratic volunteers who went door-to-door had no regard for the election process, only to pad their lists with convenient wrong information and easy-to-spot blatant signatures filled in by the same person again and again (probably the door-to-door volunteer). And that’s just the tip of the iceberg because we still didn’t confirm if the names were even live individuals! Everyone in this society must present ID for almost everything we do. Why aren’t the Dems demanding photo ID to vote? Because they know their voting numbers will diminish.
Barry cromer says
George Soros owns a company in UK which supply at least 17 states with electronic voting machines. Those 17 states represent SWING states like PA, FL and more. There has , in the past, been complaints of these machines changing votes.
AW says
2008 HEAR OBAMA’S OWN WORDS ON RIGGED ELECTIONS——COPY & PASTE:
https://shar.es/1EI38b
Margie Bridges says
This is going to be a rigged election!! It’s very evident!! But everyone should vote, if you don’t vote, you can’t gripe about it! The media has been proven to be very bias and Chris Wallace which I think was the best so far but he still gave Hillary more talking time! She never will stay on the issue because she lies!!
Daniel says
The mainstream media must pay for their crime of not telling the Truth to sway voters toward their liberal bias ideology.
T
Stop watching NBC, CBS, NBC, ABC and most of all CNN. Let them lose their rating an fold up financially. Forever, they have lost my support for the reminder of my life.
Michael says
A better headline would be, “Indiana’s Republican Secretary of State Connie Lawson mischaracterizes a law-abiding effort to legally register voters in the state.”
Delruel says
I’m embarrassed by how uninformed so many Hoosiers are. Trump? Really? Have you been paying attention AT ALL???