Ohio鈥檚 Secretary of State says 354 people who are not U.S. citizens registered to vote or actually cast ballots in 2018. And those people could potentially face charges.
Secretary of State Frank LaRose says the discovery came after his office did the annual crosschecks of databases from the 2018 election.
鈥淲hat it does is it compares the records on file with the Department of Public Safety regarding who is a citizen and who is a non-citizen. This is information that鈥檚 gained when you show up at the BMV to get a drivers鈥� license or update your drivers鈥� license or get a state id for example. At that time, you have to show your proof of legal status and would tell the Department of Public Safety whether you are a citizen or not," LaRose says.
LaRose says that check showed, in 2018, 277 non-citizens living here in Ohio registered to vote and another 77 actually voted. And he says it鈥檚 now up to the cases and decide whether these people should face charges.
Mike Brickner, the Ohio State Director for the voting rights group All Voting is Local, cautions people to withhold judgment at this point.
鈥淥ften times it may have just been a simple mistake or a person may have been confused about the system and inadvertently ended up on the voter registration list," Brickner says.
Brickner says if you need proof, just look at what has happened in other states.
鈥淔or instance, in the state of Texas last year, their Secretary of State announced he found a very large number of people who were non-citizens on the voter rolls. What later came out is they were using Bureau of Motor Vehicle data that showed that the individuals were non-citizens but the data was a few years old and wasn鈥檛 updated because the people had not been to the BMV to renew their driver鈥檚 license and in the interim period, they had become naturalized citizens," Brickner says.
The Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, Jen Miller, echoes Brickner鈥檚 call for caution. She says language barriers often exist, leading to simple misunderstandings, not malicious intent. And she says big complicated government systems can make mistakes.
鈥淓ven if every one of these is truly an instance of a non-citizen participating in an election, that鈥檚 still really small. You are more likely to win the Powerball than witness illegal voting," Miller says.
For his part, LaRose says his office took some important safeguards to prevent against false accusations.
鈥淭hey have to have presented information at least twice to say they are not a U.S. citizen. Plus, we do multiple mailings to their home registration address asking them to withdraw their registration if they are not, in fact, a U.S. citizen or if they have become a citizen to give us proof of that," says LaRose.
Still, LaRose agrees its important to remember there are 7.6 million Ohioans who are registered to vote.
鈥淓ven one instance of voter fraud is one too many so this is something that we take seriously. And this is something that when someone votes illegally, they are committing a crime," LaRose says.
Previous secretaries of state have found similar numbers of people who shouldn鈥檛 have voted or have registered to vote. But only a few dozen people have ever been prosecuted for illegal voting.
