I wanted to give you just some basic voting data for Indiana leading into the 2024 General Election. I focused on general elections in presidential years only. I compiled data for 2012, 2016, and 2020.
This is, actually, the most interesting set of data, in my opinion.
In 2012, the population of the Hoosier state was around 6,538,989 people. In 2020, the population was around 6,789,098 people. That’s a population increase of 3.82%. Yet, the number of registered voters increased by 4.31% between 2012 and 2020 with a decrease of 1.61% between 2016 and 2020. There has been a prolonged battle to cure Indiana’s voter rolls by purging registered voters who are no longer legal voters for various reasons.
There have been various attempts to smear Indiana’s attempts to ensure registered voters are, actually, legal voters. The media reported that between 2012 and 2014, Indiana removed 22.4% of its voting population. Yet, the number of registered voters from 2012 to 2016 increased over 6%. For the years in question, where Indiana allegedly removed over 22% of voters, the number of registered voters actually increased 0.83%. Indiana’s attempts to ensure voting integrity have been fought every step of the way by activists.
In 2020, the Center For Public Integrity alleged that “Indiana has made it harder for people to vote.” Well, if that’s the case, why are more people voting? Turnout has continually increased for the main elections. No, looking at primaries and municipal elections where there’s general apathy doesn’t count.
Now onto how voters vote …
As you can see in the chart, since 2012, total voter turnout for presidential year general elections have increased. Hard to do in a state where the liberal activists say Indiana is making it “harder for people to vote.”
Another statistic we see is the ever-decreasing number of people who vote in person and the increasing number who vote absentee. We had COVID in 2020 but the numbers were moving away from voting in person to absentee long before COVID.
The numbers are somewhat staggering.
Absentee voting from 2012 to 2020 increased by over 216%. While in-person voting decreased by over 42%.
In 2014, Pew Research showed Republicans with a 5-point advantage over Democrats in Indiana.
Since 2012, Republican presidential candidates have received higher percentages of votes than Democrats. Part of that could be the Mike Pence factor as the Vice Presidential candidate.
Indiana doesn’t register voters by party affiliation so getting unbiased numbers is difficult. So trends in that regard are hard to see.
More people are moving to Indiana than away from it. Many are from blue states. Republicans would like you to believe they are mostly Republicans fleeing Democrat policies, but Indiana doesn’t have a reputation as a refuge for conservatives. Texas and Florida do, but Indiana does not.
2024 will be an interesting year to evaluate for years to come. The unique circumstances surrounding Trump/Biden 2.0 could provide for temporary anomalies in election patterns or could completely reset the electorate in a way previously unimaginable.
On April 15, 2024, I broke the story that PHM schools were eliminating their DEI officer position. This was confirmed by multiple sources inside PHM.
Since the school board had not yet voted to officially eliminate the position, a few people took issue with my story. Some said I was wrong, some said I was lying and spreading “fake news.” Ultimately, as I said in the original story, they were arguing semantics. My sources were clear … the current DEI officer was being moved to a new job and there were no plans to ever fund or fill that position again in the district. It was eliminated. Arguing over whether the position was permanently vacant or if a vote officially eliminated it was silly and petty. The DEI position at PHM was no more.
The PHM board’s dislike of me is well-known. This led to one of my sources saying that they’d probably keep the DEI officer position around just to make me look bad after the story was published. I also joked about this on social media.
Then the proposed changes to PHM student handbooks came out.
DEI was being stripped from the student handbooks in PHM. If PHM wasn’t eliminating the DEI officer position, this would be an odd development. Instead, the changes to the handbooks further confirmed my exclusive story was correct.
Then today:
On May 20, 2024, Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Jerry Thacker confirmed my story was correct by saying: “We have no intention of filling that position.”
Dr. Thacker’s response was to Board of Trustees member Matt Chaffee’s direct question about that position being eliminated.
This was true in April, but every doubt has now been eliminated … just like the DEI officer position. The board voted to remove DEI from the student handbooks later that evening.
This does not mean the principles of DEI are going away. They will always be around but DEI is on the retreat … at least in an official capacity. This is something that would have been celebrated by nearly everyone just a few short months ago.
This is a very big deal and I can’t wait to see the local media coverage of it. Especially since the media has recently taken a newfound interest in PHM school board issues. So much so, that the board set seats aside for local media to attend the meetings.
In an exclusive press release to me, Matt responds to the vote and hints at what’s to come regarding the allegations against him.
Last month, Real News Michiana published a story accusing Matt Chaffee of hypocrisy in demanding PHM board members resign in the wake of numerous violations by their members. The claim is that Matt was himself engaging in activity that warranted his resignation.
Most local media outlets showed up to last night’s vote to call for Chaffee’s resignation. The media was disinterested in previous press releases they received highlighting several examples of the board president, Chris Riley, and his actions, and the subsequent calls by Matt Chaffee for Chris Riley to resign as a result.
These previous issues included, but are not limited to:
The board losing an illegal SAC complaint with the state.
A parent winning a Civil Rights complaint against the board.
The harassing of parents critical of the board. Including police and employer harassment.
Board President Chris Riley committing several policy violations.
And refusal to punish PHM faculty caught violating policies.
None of those well-documented issues have caught the attention of local media. This angle, however, did.
The same goes for the teacher’s union representatives who circulated an email recruiting people to be at last night’s meeting. They were never interested in showing up to address proven issues with the PHM school board previously.
I wanted to point out that the media has been completely disinterested in corruption and abuse on the PHM board, but the moment a conservative member faced criticism, they showed up.
Here’s Matt Chaffee’s response to what happened last night and the allegations against him: