Widespread voter fraud is not a problem in Ohio elections
President Donald Trump amplified his assault on voting by mail last week, volleying baseless claims about widespread voter fraud as states weigh expanding mail-in voting amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
But in Ohio, elections officials from Trump’s own party and other experts said that election fraud is exceedingly rare and reassured voters that the state has multiple layers of checks to prevent it from happening.
That includes multiple layers of confirmation on the voter’s identity as they request and cast absentee ballots, signature checks, and investigations that arise as elections officials audit results.
Former Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, now the Republican lieutenant governor, conducted investigations that concluded voter fraud happens, but not in large numbers.
In fact, it was practically microscopic compared with voter turnout. In 2012, 2014 and 2016, Husted found 820 “voting irregularities” and referred 336 cases for prosecution. Voters cast nearly 14.4 million ballots in those elections.
Cases referred for prosecution represented only .002% of the ballots casts.
“Incidences of fraud are very low. It’s not zero. It’s not completely non-existent but it’s very low and unlikely to affect the outcome of elections except in extraordinary circumstances,” said Ned Foley, director of election law at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law.
That runs counter to claims from the White House of rampant voter fraud, particularly among absentee ballots. Trump’s claim that mailboxes are raided to influence elections results is false, experts said, and last week Twitter attached a fact-check to the president’s tweets about voting by mail.
Trump himself voted by mail in Florida.
“I can tell you porch pirates aren’t stealing my absentee ballot. They’re stealing my Amazon package hoping there’s something good in there,” said Nancy Miller, political science professor at the University of Dayton.
Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, said he has not seen any documented cases of ballots being stolen from mailboxes in Ohio. Voters can track their absentee ballots online in Ohio, he said, so they would know if it didn’t arrive at the board of elections.
Debates about voter fraud and voter suppression are “oversimplified” for partisan political gain, LaRose said.
“The president is responsible for all 50 states. My focus is on Ohio. The concerns that he raises may be perfectly valid in other states. In some cases there are documented instances of problems, but not in Ohio,” he said.
LaRose said the state also regularly updates its voter rolls.
Last year, LaRose referred about 350 cases of non-citizen voters to the attorney general for investigation, including 77 who allegedly improperly cast ballots. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has referred 60 of those cases to county prosecutors.
More than 4.5 million voters cast ballots in Ohio in 2019.
Those anecdotes get attention, but Foley said they aren’t happening in large enough numbers to influence statewide elections.
“That should give most Ohioans comfort that in most elections incidental problems, whether a mistake or fraud, are likely to be inconsequential,” he said.
Still, a recent poll shows a widening partisan chasm of support for voting by mail as Trump has ramped up his attacks.
An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released in April found that 47% of Democrats supported transitioning to an all-mail election compared with 29% of Republicans. Democrats and Republicans supported all-mail elections in similar numbers in 2018, according to the poll.
“Mail in voting is one of the safest, best ways for people to vote. Both parties think that. This president is just making stuff up,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, a former Ohio secretary of state.
Last week, Twitter started attaching fact-checks to Trump’s tweets about voting by mail. In addition to his voter-fraud claims, he also has claimed that Michigan planned to send absentee ballots to all its residents, but the state only planned to send absentee ballot applications.
Ohio has done the same in past elections, and LaRose is trying to convince state lawmakers to allow him to send applications to nearly 8 million registered voters in Ohio for the November general election and to pay for return postage on those ballots. LaRose said he is opposed to an all-mail election.
Ohio has had no-excuse absentee voting — meaning voters don’t have to provide a reason for requesting an absentee ballot — for about two decades, with big portions of that period overseen by Republican rule in statewide offices.
Trump has said Republicans are at a disadvantage when more voters cast ballots by mail. LaRose pushed back on that, pointing out that Ohio had record voter turnout in 2016 and 2018, when Trump won the state by 8 points and Republicans dominated statewide elections.
Several states already are expanding their voting-bymail systems, and that could delay results in November as they count those ballots in the weeks following Election Day. Foley said voters need to understand that those votes are legitimate.
“There is a sense of worry that these messages, they’re going to potentially undermine the faith that people have in the electoral process right now,” Miller said of Trump’s tweets. “Our whole system rests on that.”