There’s more than one way to steal an election.

The straightforward method comes most immediately to mind: gather up votes, legally and otherwise, in favor of your candidate.

But there are more subtle and sneaky tactics. Stop votes going to your opponent; or, simply stop the vote entirely — or ruin public trust in it — by gumming up the election with complaints and technical glitches.

The subtle moves are afoot in Indiana, apparently.

State troopers in Indianapolis are investigating allegations of voter registration fraud involving potentially as many as 45,000 voter applications across nine counties in the Hoosier State.

On Tuesday, police armed with a search warrant raided the offices of the Indiana Voter Registration Project, capping a two-month registration fraud probe.

Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division have been apprised of the action, a police spokesman said.

According to reports in Indianapolis and Fort Wayne newspapers, the investigation began when election officials in Lawson’s office discovered patterns of discrepancies in the voter registration application forms submitted by IVRP on behalf of voters. In routine follow-up telephone calls, several of the voters whose names appeared on the forms said they had not submitted them and had not authorized anyone else to submit a form on their behalf.

The Indianapolis Star reports that IVRP was founded and operated by Craig Varoga, a Democratic strategist and staffer on former President Bill Clinton’s 1996 national campaign. Varoga runs several organizations affiliated with Patriot Majority USA. The Star reported Sept. 23 that Patriot Majority USA is the “dark money” group that’s funding the Indiana Voter Registration Project.

Patriot Majority, a nonpartisan charitable organization funded primarily by organized labor, is not required to disclose its donors. Patriot Majority had more than $30 million in contributions in 2014, its last reportable year, with more than $8 million from one undisclosed donor, the newspaper reported.

Was the IVRP’s intention simply to block votes for its political opponents, or to create political havoc akin to Florida’s hanging-chads debacle of the 2000 presidential election? Or was it, as Varoga claimed this week, a simple case of multiple clerical errors?

Regardless, the result might be unsuspecting voters being faced with rejection or, at best, a provisional ballot, at the polls on Election Day.

No such reports of voter irregularities have surfaced this year in Pennsylvania. Even so, voters in Butler County can avoid anything similar to the confusion happening in Indiana. It takes just a few seconds to check your registration status online. Here’s how:

Go to the state website www.pavoterservices.state.pa.us. Click on “find my registration status” and enter your name, Zip code and date of birth. You will instantly receive not only your eligibility status, but also your party affiliation and polling location.

If you spot a discrepancy, you can fix it online — but don’t delay. Registration deadline is Oct. 11 for the Nov. 8 election.

If you’re shy about computers, a visit or phone call to the Bureau of Elections at the Butler County Courthouse will get the same results, provided it’s done by the Oct. 11 deadline.

Now more than ever, the words of Thomas Jefferson still ring true: “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”