Postcards dropped in county mailboxes this summer are helping local voters stay registered to vote.
The postcards are a biannual effort from the state to help clean up the voter rolls. Most county voters do not have to do anything to continue to be registered to vote. If your postcard is delivered to the residence that you are registered at, you don’t need to do anything, said Reagan Higdon, first deputy clerk of Johnson County.
State officials have sent postcards to every registered voter in the state, including to the more than 100,000 registered voters in Johnson County.
Voters who have voted in the last few years and whose address matches their voter registration likely do not not have to do anything to continue to be registered, Higdon said.
"If you are the addressee on the post card than no further action is needed," Higdon said.
However, the state recently sent a second postcard if the first mailing was returned as undeliverable, she said.
People who received the second postcard are asked to update their address and registration in the postcard. Doing that will help them keep their status as active voters, Higdon said.
Voters who do not respond to the second postcard are at risk of being deemed inactive. Inactive voters are then at risk of being removed from the voter rolls after a period of inactivity, she said.
Second postcards that are not returned will move a voter to inactive status, but they would still be allowed to vote if they show up to the polls this fall, Higdon said.
The state is required to send out the postcards to clean up the voting rolls every other year, Higdon said.
Nearly 9,000 Johnson County voters were removed from the voter rolls in 2017. Voters are removed due to reasons such as moving or being deceased.
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The state is in the process of updating voter rolls.
Check your registration status and register to vote at indianavoters.in.gov.
The deadline to register for the November election is Oct. 7.
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