In response to Governor Mike Braun’s call for a special legislative session to redraw Indiana’s Congressional maps, Independent Indiana executive director Nathan Gotsch released the following statement:

“This is what happens when you don’t have competitive elections. It’s a blatant effort by the party in power to fix every single Congressional race in their favor nearly a year before a single ballot is cast. 

They clearly see us — the voters — as an inconvenience they need to work around. If they truly cared about their constituents, they’d be working to fix our problems, not theirs.”

Recent polling released by Independent Indiana found that 53% of Hoosiers oppose redistricting, while just 34% support it. The poll also found Governor Braun’s favorability at just 24% statewide, with only 53% of Republicans viewing him favorably — unusually low numbers for a first-year governor in a deep-red state.

Gotsch said the call to redistrict reflects a political class increasingly disconnected from the electorate it claims to represent. The same survey found that only 29% of Hoosiers identify as Republicans, while 41% call themselves independents.

“Indiana isn’t as partisan as our election results make it look,” Gotsch said. “Most Hoosiers see themselves as independents — and they overwhelmingly support real election reforms, not partisan power grabs.”

Among those reforms:

• 62% of Hoosiers say straight-ticket voting is a bad thing, including 49% of Republicans.

• 67% of voters - including 56% of Republicans - say Indiana’s burdensome signature requirements on independents to get on the ballot are unfair.

“If lawmakers want to spend a special session addressing Indiana’s elections, they should start there,” Gotsch said. “Fix the rules that make it nearly impossible for independent candidates to even get on the ballot for the Congressional seats they are trying to gerrymander. End straight-ticket voting so people actually think about who they’re voting for. Those are the changes Hoosiers want — not mid-decade redistricting for purely partisan purposes.”