Hundreds of non-citizens are registered to vote in Ohio and some have even cast ballots, a state investigation of its voter rolls reveals.
According to Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, his office has identified a total of 821 non-citizens registered to vote in the Buckeye State since 2011 — 126 of whom voted in at least one election.
“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.”
Husted’s office has conducted reviews of Ohio’s Statewide Registered Voter Database (SWRVD) three times. The 821 non-citizens registered to vote and the 126 non-citizen voters represent the most recent total of the three reviews.
The secretary of state announced Monday that this year his office discovered 385 non-citizens registered to vote in Ohio, 82 of whom have cast at least one ballot. In 2013, Husted’s office uncovered 291 non-citizens registered to vote and found another 145 in 2015. Of those non-citizens registered to vote, the office found 17 had voted in 2013 and 27 voted in 2015.
Like the other non-citizen voters before them, Husted’s office has referred the 82 non-citizens discovered to have cast ballots during this review of the rolls to law enforcement officials for “investigation and possible prosecution,” a release said.
The non-citizens who are registered but who have not voted, according to Husted, will be notified of their registration by mail and instructed to cancel their registration. His office will refer those cases that do not cancel their registration after a second notification letter to law enforcement for additional investigation.
“I have a responsibility to preserve the integrity of Ohio’s elections system,” Secretary Husted said. “When you consider that in Ohio we have had 112 elections decided by one vote or tied in the last three years, every case of illegal voting must be taken seriously, and elections officials must have every resource available to them to respond accordingly.”
According to Husted’s office, there is no evidence that the non-citizens who illegally voted participated in those tied or single-vote-difference elections.
