Indiana: “Common Cause, NAACP sue over Marion County early voting”

Indiana Lawyer:

Marion County’s single location for early voting provides unequal access to the ballot, argues a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday by Common Cause and the NAACP. Plaintiffs in the case allege Indianapolis’ sole early voting precinct is discriminatory and constitutes voter suppression.

The suit takes aim at the system in which one of the three unelected members of the Marion County Election Board, most recently Republican Party member Maura Hoff, has vetoed multiple early voting locations in the state’s most populous county. The result has been sometimes-long lines at the sole location for early voting, the Marion County Clerk’s office in the Indianapolis City-County Building….

“What we’re dealing with here is both a fundamental constitutional right to vote as well as a statutory right to participate in the early voting exercise on the same terms that are available to voters in counties other than Marion County, where we’ve consistently been restricted to one location, even though we’re by far the largest in population,” said lead plaintiff’s attorney Bill Groth.

Groth filed the complaint that’s before Senior Judge Sarah Evans Barker in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. The suit alleges 14th Amendment equal protection and due process violations, violations of the Voting Rights Act, and a violation of the Indiana Constitution’s provision under Article 2, Section 1 that “elections shall be free and equal.

Blog readers might recall that Groth litigated the Crawford voter id litigation before Judge Barker as well.

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