The Indiana Citizen v. Office of the Indiana Secretary of State

Case Number: 49D06-2509-PL-041604

Court: Marion Superior Court 6

Client: The Indiana Citizen

Background: In October 2024, Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales and Attorney General Todd Rokita sent a joint letter to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services requesting assistance from the federal government in “verifying the citizenship status” of nearly 600,000 individuals registered to vote in Indiana. The letter included three attachments, which are not publicly available, identifying the registered voters subject to the citizenship inquiry across three categories: registered Indiana voters who registered without providing a driver’s license number or social security number; registered Indiana voters located overseas; and registered Indiana voters who registered to vote without providing a driver’s license number.

Marilyn Odendahl, editor of the nonprofit news outlet The Indiana Citizen, submitted public records requests to the Office of the Indiana Secretary of State and the Office of the Indiana Attorney General seeking the list of names included in the attachments. After receiving no responses, The Indiana Citizen filed a formal complaint with the Office of the Public Access Counselor, alleging that both offices violated the Indiana Access to Public Records Act by failing to respond to Odendahl’s requests within a reasonable time. 

While the complaint was pending, the OAG issued a written denial to Odendahl’s request. The office confirmed that it found three documents responsive to the request but that they were exempt from disclosure under a state statute that prohibits disclosure of any part of the voter rolls except in limited circumstances. The rejection prompted The Indiana Citizen to file a second complaint with the PAC.

In February 2025, the PAC issued an opinion in favor of The Indiana Citizen, concluding that the OAG’s “denial was improper based on the law as plainly written.” Following the PAC’s opinion, the OAG offered to allow the news outlet to inspect — but not copy — the requested documents. However, the OAG later withdrew the offer after it asked the PAC to reconsider its opinion. To date, The Indiana Citizen has not received any records in response to its request.

On behalf of The Indiana Citizen, Kris Cundiff, the Indiana Local Legal Initiative attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, filed this lawsuit against the SOS and OAG alleging that both agencies violated Indiana’s public records law by failing to respond to Odendahl’s requests within a reasonable time and by unlawfully withholding public records. The lawsuit asks the Marion Superior Court to order the agencies to disclose the requested documents. 

Quote: “The Attorney General and Secretary of State have left us no choice,” said Bill Moreau, president of the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation Inc. and publisher of The Indiana Citizen. “They continue to raise the specter of perhaps thousands of criminals on Indiana’s voter registration rolls who allegedly broke the law when they registered to vote without being American citizens. Ten months after they first waved this bloody shirt and began stonewalling us, they’ve forced us to sue them to release the names of Hoosier voters whose citizenship they have called into question.”

Filings:

2025-09-02: Complaint