COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio’s elections director has referred 597 cases of apparent noncitizens for potential legal action after they either registered to vote or cast ballots in recent elections. While this figure is notably higher than usual, it still represents a minuscule segment of the state’s overall electorate.
Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced that out of these cases, 138 individuals actually voted, while 459 registered but did not participate in the election. This identification process is part of a routine review and has been forwarded to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost for further investigation.
Ongoing Voter Registration Audits Raise Concerns
The current number of referred cases stands in contrast to previous years, with only 148 noncitizen cases being referred in 2022, 117 in 2021, and 354 in 2019. Ohio has over 8 million registered voters, making these noncitizen cases a very small percentage of the electorate. Historically, very few noncitizen-related cases result in prosecution.
LaRose’s referrals come amid a heightened focus on preventing noncitizen voting, which has become a pivotal theme in Republican messaging for the upcoming 2024 elections. Earlier this year, he initiated an audit of the state’s voter registration database, resulting in the removal of 154,995 registrations that were deemed abandoned or inactive for at least four consecutive years.
Civil rights organizations have criticized these efforts as forms of voter suppression. LaRose maintains that this ongoing effort, which may lead to further cancellations of registrations before the presidential election in November, represents the most thorough citizenship verification process his office has ever conducted. The analysis incorporates cross-referencing with various databases, including those from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the Department of Homeland Security’s federal noncitizen database, the Social Security Administration, and federal jury pool data, among other resources.
Source : https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/ohio/articles/2024-08-21/ohio-identifies-597-noncitizens-who-voted-or-registered-in-recent-elections