Amy Bartner, and Tony Cook

IndyStar

In an election year marked by concerns over voter fraud and suppression, thousands of Hoosiers received text messages in recent days directing them to the wrong polling place.

Election officials contacted police and prosecutors.

But by midafternoon Monday, the sources behind at least some of the texts became clear. The Indiana Democratic Party and a nonpartisan voter advocacy organization said database problems led to a glitch.

“The Indiana Democratic Party experienced a data-match error in our get-out-the-vote text message program to Democratic voters," Drew Anderson, a spokesman for the party, said in an emailed statement. "We are correcting the error now with a new message directing the voters impacted to www.indianavoters.com so that they are able to confirm their polling location."

He said the party sent text messages with wrong polling locations to about 2,000 Indiana voters.

The party said it sent more than 400,000 text messages strictly to likely Democratic voters using telephone numbers received through voter registration file information.

But at least one Republican, City-County Councilman Jeff Miller, said he received a text with incorrect polling place information. The format of the text matched exactly the format used by the Indiana Democratic Party.

Miller said he always votes in the Republican primary.

When asked about the possibility that incorrect information was sent to Republicans, Anderson emailed another statement.

"This text was sent to Hoosiers who were likely to support our candidates," he said. "Again, we apologize for the inconvenience and the Indiana Democratic Party encourages all voters to participate in the political process on Election Day. We would never attempt to confuse a voter — period."

Text messages from the Democratic Party read: "Election Day is Tuesday. Make your plan NOW to vote! Polls are open from 6am-6pm on Tuesday Nov. 8. Your polling place is [POLLING LOCATION AND ADDRESS]."

The party's follow-up text message said: “This Election is TIED! Polls are open tomorrow from 6am-6pm. Record high turnout is expected. Find your polling place at www.indianavoters.com.”

Nonpartisan voter advocacy organization Vote.org also sent out texts to remind people to vote Tuesday, and some of those texts, too, listed incorrect polling places.

“There’s that piece where sometimes the voter file is off,” Vote.org's Brad Schenck said. “It’s an inherently complicated process."

Schenck said he empathized with the Indiana Democratic Party because he understands the difficulty of achieving 100 percent accuracy.

"In reality, everyone’s trying to do the best to help as many as possible get to the polls,” he said.

How to vote in Indiana: All your FAQs answered

The text messages come as election officials brace for high voter turnout and long lines at polling places Tuesday. Early voting in Marion and Hamilton counties is up compared with the last presidential election in 2012.

Worries about voter fraud and suppression have been rampant this year. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has stoked concerns about large-scale voter fraud and the possibility of a “rigged” election. Such worries have been compounded in Indiana, where State Police raided the offices of a liberal voter registration group last month and later alleged fraud in 56 counties.

The group behind the registration effort, Patriot Majority USA, has accused State Police and the Indiana secretary of state's office of trying to suppress the vote.

Experts emphasize that while election crimes do happen, they don't influence national elections.

Still, the errant text messages Monday heightened such concerns. Initial reports prompted election officials to contact law enforcement.

Russell Hollis, deputy director at the Marion County clerk's office, said Monday he received at least three emails from voters saying they had received such texts. Each of the text messages he had seen came from a different phone number. He said his office forwarded the emails to the Marion County prosecutor's office, the U.S. attorney's office and the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.

Tim Horty, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, said the office has learned of several cases of voters receiving similar text messages.

"We are aware of those text messages and would encourage all individuals to report those incidents to our offices or to local law enforcement agency or the State Police or the FBI," Horty said.

Similar text message issues have occurred in at least one other state. A text message to a resident in Missouri's Johnson County from an unknown phone number gave the wrong polling location, KMIZ-TV reported. The incident prompted county clerks across the state to remind voters to double-check their polling place.

Call IndyStar reporter Amy Bartner at (317) 444-6752. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.