By Howard Greninger
BRAZIL — With his state budget running low, Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita is turning to a more grassroots campaign-like attempt to inform Hoosiers about registering to vote and the election process.
On Wednesday, Rokita visited St. Vincent Clay Hospital, part of St. Vincent Health, which operates 17 hospitals in Indiana and is the state’s eighth-largest employer, said Jerry Laue, administrator at the Clay County hospital. St. Vincent Health has joined with the Secretary of State’s office to promote voter registration and election participation.
The hospital’s program is called “My Voice, My Vote.”
“It gave us a platform in this state, through our associates, to really get involved. We worked on getting our own staff to make sure they are registered voters as well as try to work through the community to heighten the awareness” of Tuesday’s election, Laue said.
Over the past six years, Rokita said his office has largely done voter outreach “in the broadcast sense,” using public service announcements, radio announcements and using major city buses, advertising both inside and out about the state’s requirement of a photo ID to vote.
“That was a lot of outreach that had never been done before, but this year we wanted to do what we call ‘Outreach 2.0,’ and that is get more grassroots about it,” Rokita said. “We know that the campaigns do their own grassroots effort, but there really hasn’t been a grassroots effort from the state. And with what little money we had left, because we are on fumes now in terms of our funding, we wanted to do grassroots, which is less intensive from a monetary standpoint.
“Where campaigns do [a] grassroots write to voters, well, so did we,” Rokita said. “Every newly registered voter this year got a postcard from the state. It didn’t tell you who to vote for, it talked to you about the [election] process. College students got specific e-mails. We used their college e-mail systems to reach them. In the future, I would like to do text messaging, use Cha-Cha; use all the options you see the campaigns using but at a state level to reduce costs,” Rokita said.
Part of the effort also included Rokita mailing and calling the top employers and labor unions in the state. Rokita said he made about 50 telephone calls to ask if election information could be distributed to workers and members.
“I was pleased to first see some said they were already doing it and many more said they would be glad to do that. That is how this started and we hope it ripens in the future,” he said.
The Secretary of State’s office has a Web site that lists five things voters need to know on Election Day. That site is www.IndianaVoters.com or voters can call 1-866-IN-1-VOTE (1-866-461-8683) to check voter registration and polling place locations.
Rokita predicts a 65 percent voter turnout in Tuesday’s election. As of Wednesday, Rokita said 366,143 Hoosiers statewide, out of about 4.5 million registered voters, already had voted by casting an absentee ballot.
Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com.
