By Taylor Wooten 
TheStatehouseFile.com 

INDIANAPOLIS — Citing the news of President Donald Trump and his wife testing positive for COVID-19 and a surge in the number of positive cases in Indiana, a voting rights group has renewed its call for no-excuse absentee voting in the November election.

Barbara Tully of Indiana Vote By Mail issued a news release Friday urging Gov. Eric Holcomb, Secretary of State Connie Lawson and the Indiana Election Commission to drop its opposition to allowing all Hoosiers to vote by mail. Under current law, only those meeting specific requirements, such as being over age 65 or being out of town, can vote by absentee ballot.

The group, in the news release, argued that because the novel coronavirus spreads easily in public places and many government functions, including legislative hearings and court arguments, are happening in a virtual environment, “the voting public deserves the same degree of consideration.”

“It is unconscionable that the Governor, the Secretary of State and the IEC continue to insist that hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers put their lives and health on the line to exercise their most important task as citizens: their right to vote,” the release says.

The demand for no-excuse absentee voting comes as the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Indiana continues to rise. On Friday, the Indiana State Department of Health reported 1,495 new cases, for a total of 122,640, and 13 additional deaths, for a total of 3,429.

Indiana Vote By Mail has been fighting to remove the excuses required to vote by absentee ballot since August, when the group filed a lawsuit saying Indiana’s law violates the 26^th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. The group is seeking an injunction to force state officials to allow no-excuse absentee voting. They are awaiting a decision from the 7^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard arguments in the case Wednesday.

Dr. Woody Myers, the Democratic candidate for governor, renewed his criticism of Holcomb’s decision to move to Stage 5 of his reopening plan when news of that the president and Melania Trump have tested positive for COVID-19.

“Gov. Holcomb refused to take quick action to protect Hoosiers from preventable hospitalizations and death and now we’re seeing skyrocketing COVID-19 numbers, climbing positivity rates and what points to a forthcoming outbreak in Southwestern Indiana,” Myers said in a news release.

At his virtual press conference on the state’s response to COVID-19 Wednesday, Holcomb noted that within the week Indiana went from having one of the slowest rates of spread to one of the higher rates.

“It just shows the volatility of the spread rate and what we need to do to be extra vigilant. But it doesn’t mean that we go back to 4.5 or 4, it means we need to hunker down in the areas where we see spread,” Holcomb said.

The governor has also defended his opposition to no-excuse absentee by saying that Hoosiers will have plenty of opportunities to cast ballots safely in person because of early voting sites available across the state. Early voting begins Tuesday, Oct. 6.

Holly Lawson, the governor’s campaign press secretary, said Holcomb is listening to health officials to safely get the economy back on track.

“Indiana’s positivity rate is down to around 4%, robust testing is available, and Indiana’s hospital capacity is strong,” Lawson said. “We’ve made so much progress compared to other states.”

The deadline to register to vote is Monday, Oct. 5, and the deadline to request an absentee ballot is Oct. 22. U.S. District Sarah Evans Barker in a separate voting right case, ordered the state to count mail-in ballots that are received as late as Nov. 13 as long as they are postmarked Nov. 3 or earlier. The original deadline to count absentee ballots was noon on Nov. 3.Taylor Wooten is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.