State: 82 noncitizens voted in ’16
ELECTIONS /
Noncitizens are voting in Ohio elections, but the numbers are very small, a new report indicates.
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said Monday his office found 82 noncitizens who registered and voted in at least 2016. They are among
385 noncitizens who improperly registered to vote last year, Husted said.
Coupling the new numbers with those from similar studies after the 2012 and 2014 elections, Husted said that a total of 821 noncitizens have been identified as being registered improperly, and 126 of them voted in at least one statewide election.
The overall numbers might look significant, but they pale next to the millions of Ohioans who legally cast votes in those years.
Only a small percentage of those illegal voters discovered in the 2012 and 2014 inquiries were pursued and prosecuted for voter fraud, records show.
Of 44 people referred for prosecution after those two elections, Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office said that eight were prosecuted. Five were convicted, one was reported to a diversion program, and the records were sealed in two cases, so the dispositions are not known. One of the five convicted was fined $300 on a falsification conviction, and the four others were sentenced to community control. None received jail time.
DeWine’s office said that seven people registered when they were not yet citizens, but they had become citizens by the time they cast a ballot.
The remaining 29 people were investigated by the Bureau of Criminal Investigation but were either not prosecuted by county prosecutors or not indicted by a grand jury.
It is illegal for noncitizens to register and vote. The 82 from the 2016 election will be referred to law enforcement for investigation and possible prosecution, Husted said. Fourteen of the improper ballots were cast in Franklin County.
“In light of the national discussion about illegal voting, it is important to inform our discussions with facts,” Husted said in a statement. “The fact is, voter fraud happens, it is rare, and when it happens, we hold people accountable.”
President Donald Trump has claimed that about 3 million illegal immigrants cast ballots in the November presidential election; he provided no evidence to back his claim.
Husted’s office said the 303 noncitizens who registered but did not vote in 2016 will be informed via letter that they are ineligible to cast a ballot and should cancel their registration. If they do not act after a second notification, the matter will be referred to law enforcement. Husted’s office is not permitted to remove the registrations, even though they are invalid.
Husted’s office used information from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles to find people who registered illegally. He said the number of noncitizens who are registered is likely to be larger.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation, a nonprofit public-interest law firm, issued a statement supporting Husted.
“This is a good first step to detect and clean aliens from the rolls. ... This latest finding continues to build the case for legislative reform that requires proof of citizenship as a component to voter registration.”
Carrie Davis, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, questioned Husted’s findings, saying the allegedly illegal votes represent 0.001462 percent of the 5,607,641 ballots cast in the November 2016 election. None of the questionable ballots in 2016 came in areas where a single vote would have changed the outcome, she said.
“These cases have not yet been investigated by law enforcement or heard by a court,” Davis said. “In this country, we believe in due process to get to the bottom of what did or did not happen.”