13 WTHR - Indianapolis News |Clerk warns of voter registration mistakes

Clerk warns of voter registration mistakes

Cat Andersen/Eyewitness News

Indianapolis - The heightened interest in this presidential election is drawing thousands of new voters in Indiana. With higher numbers of registration forms comes an increased number of errors.

Since the May primary, voter registration in Hendricks County is up by more than 1,000; in Hamilton County, by more than 7,000 and in Marion County, by more than 9,000.

John Riordan with the Marion County Board of Voter Registration says they've seen 5,000 registrations in the last month.

The board says they expect to see 10,000 to 15,000 more registrations by the October 6th deadline.

"As we get more registrations that generally means more of them will be incomplete," said Riordan.

The two most common mistakes voting officials see are in boxes eleven and twelve which ask about age and American citizenship.

"Oftentimes people will forget to check those boxes and if they don't we can't process their registration. We'll send them a letter telling them they need to correct that error," said Riordan.

But it could take weeks to catch the error and notify the voter.

"If we get 5,000, 6,000,10,000 registrations, there's only so many people who can actually get the work done," said Riordan.

A mistake caught after October 6th can't be fixed in time for November.

"We expect you to get a perfected registration done prior to the deadline," said Riordan.

To avoid those types of problems, the Hendricks County clerk is taking a proactive approach, creating what she calls a drive kit.

"This is just to let the people who are having voter registration drives get a better handle, make sure they have the forms filled out completely and that we don't have issues like, can't read the address very well, make sure driver's license numbers are put on there," said Cindy Spence.

The deadline to register to vote is October 6. To check your voter registration status or download a registration form, click here.