Ohio secretary of state finds 597 noncitizens registered to vote, 138 have already voted

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced on Wednesday that he has referred evidence of nearly 600 noncitizen voters in the state to Attorney General Dave Yost’s office for possible prosecution, with some of those voters already casting ballots in the state.

"I’m duty-bound to make sure people who haven’t yet earned citizenship in this country do not vote in our elections," LaRose said in a press release. “We’ve so far identified 597 individuals who’ve registered to vote in Ohio despite not being citizens of the United States, as our state constitution requires."

"The evidence includes 138 individuals who appear to have cast a ballot in an Ohio election during the time state and federal records show they lacked citizenship status. The law requires me to refer these individuals to the attorney general, and that’s what we’re doing today."

LaRose launched an audit of Ohio’s voter registration database earlier in 2024, which resulted in the removal of 15,995 registrations that were confirmed to be inactive or abandoned for a period of at least four consecutive years.

LaRose also undertook the "most extensive citizenship verification audit ever conducted by the Ohio Secretary of State’s office" which included cross-checking with records provided by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Homeland Security’s federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, federal jury pool data, and other resources.

The investigation into the citizenship status of voters remains ongoing, LaRose’s office said, and additional removals may occur before the election in November. Under state law, the secretary of state is allowed to "investigate the administration of election laws, frauds, and irregularities in elections in any county, and report violations of election laws to the attorney general or prosecuting attorney, or both, for prosecution."

This comes as other states, including Alabama and Texas, have also found noncitizens on their voter rolls and Republicans have been pushing to secure the 2024 election amid record numbers of illegal immigration in the US.