Rokita Statement on Morgan Trial: Voting Reforms Ensure Confidence in Election Process

Statement

U.S. Rep. Todd Rokita today issued the following statement after a guilty verdict was announced late Thursday in the ballot petition fraud trial involving former St. Joseph County Democratic Party Chair Butch Morgan.

"For eight years as Indiana's Secretary of State, my main goal was to make sure Hoosiers would regain and maintain confidence in the election process. If people don't have confidence that their votes count and count equally with others, they won't participate. If they don't participate, we can't "keep the republic.'

"So, we set out and built Indiana's statewide voter file, installed new voting equipment, implemented a common sense photo ID law, and made voting more convenient by harnessing technology so that voting centers could be used if counties chose to do so. We also changed Indiana law regarding third party voter registration and tightened some of the voting registration laws generally. Current Secretary of State Connie Lawson not only continues this work, but helped write some of these provisions into law at the time.

"A couple of these very tools, along with some top-notch journalism, helped identify the fraud of which one of the highest leaders of the Indiana Democratic Party has been found guilty," said Rokita.

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