Lawsuit to clean up voter rolls can proceed

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A conservative watchdog group's bid to force Indiana to clean up its voter registration rolls can proceed.

The state's motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch was rejected Monday by U.S. District Judge William Lawrence.

The Washington, D.C.-based group alleges 2010 general election data shows 12 mostly rural counties had more people registered to vote than were eligible. Those counties are Brown, Crawford, Franklin, Hancock, Newton, Orange, Scott, Spencer, Tipton, Warren, Warrick and Union.

Indiana in 2006 reached an agreement with the Justice Department to purge voter rolls of those who had died or were listed more than once after an investigation found hundreds of thousands of ineligible voters on its lists.

A spokeswoman for the Indiana Election Division declined to comment on the ruling Tuesday.