Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose said of the eight million registered voters in Ohio, nearly 600 who are non-citizens were either registered to vote or actually voted last year or earlier this year.
But LaRose said many might not be prosecuted for election law violations because voter fraud is extremely rare.
LaRose said his office has found 597 cases where non-citizens were wrongfully registered to vote. Of those, he said he has cause to believe 138 of the 597 people who voted did so during the past year. He's referred the cases to county prosecutors who will investigate those cases further and will decide whether to charge people with those crimes.
There's more to it than meets the eye
Non-citizens are allowed to get Ohio driver's licenses and when they do, they are offered the chance to register to vote, which they’re not allowed to do. Sometimes non-citizens don't understand they are ineligible or workers at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles incorrectly register a non-citizen.
Joe Mas, a Columbus attorney who has handled a few cases of immigrants who were prosecuted, said language barriers often exist in situations like this.
“In none of the cases was it someone who was trying to get away with something," Mas said. "In every single case, it was a mistake or understanding.”
Mas said one case involved a business owner from Canada who was a legal, permanent resident who voted for former President Donald Trump. Mas said that man was registered improperly when he went to apply for a driver's license.
"They asked him about registering and he said, 'I'm not a citizen. I'm a legal, permanent resident' yet the individual (at the BMV) insisted that it was ok for him to register,” Mas said. “Therefore, the man thought it was ok for him to vote.”
Mas said that man was not prosecuted. But he said another client of his had to plead guilty. Mas said that client had a business in Newark and voted on a local ordinance that he thought affected his business and continued to vote the rest of the ticket because he thought he was permitted to do so.
LaRose said he knows of cases where non-citizens have found themselves improperly on the voter rolls. And he said his office tries to catch those cases. He said they send a letter out to remind non-citizens that they cannot legally vote, and then follows that up with another letter before making a referral for prosecution.
"We send everybody a letter before we do these saying, according to our records, you are a non-citizen and you are ready to vote. If you did this in error, if you did this as a mistake, you should return in the self-addressed envelope we provide the form that says 'I do not want to be a registered voter,'" LaRose said.
LaRose said his office gets a high response rate when they send those letters. And in some cases, people who receive them go our of their way to rectify the situation.
"We have had people who come down to our office in Columbus and say 'Oh no, this was a mistake,'" LaRose said.
Mas said sometimes people who are referred for prosecution fell through the cracks somehow, especially considering the language barriers.
Voters in Yellow Springs had approved allowing non-citizens to vote on local issues in 2019, but LaRose said registrations from non-citizens wouldn’t be accepted. In 2022 Ohio voters overwhelmingly approved an amendment prohibiting voting by non-citizens.
