COLUMBUS – Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has issued a directive to the 88 county boards of elections initiating a confirmation and removal process of non-citizens from the state’s voter registration rolls. LaRose also announced additional steps by his office to “conduct an annual review of the statewide voter registration database to identify persons who appear not to be United States citizens,” as required by state law.
“Ohioans overwhelmingly passed an amendment to our state constitution which makes it clear that only U.S. citizens can vote in our elections,” said LaRose. “It is my duty under the law to uphold the constitution, and the legislature has explicitly tasked me with ensuring that only eligible citizens can register and vote.”
The Secretary of State’s Public Integrity Division and Office of Data Analytics and Archives recently completed a review of identification records provided by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV). The data found 137 voter registrations assigned to Ohio residents who have twice confirmed their non-citizenship status to the BMV. Ohio law requires there to be two instances of an individual submitting documentation to the BMV indicating that they are not a United States citizen. The individual must also have either registered to vote, updated a registration, or voted in Ohio in between the two instances of submitting the required documentation to the BMV.
These individuals will receive two written notices from the Secretary of State’s office asking them to confirm their citizenship status or cancel their registration. Failure to respond to these notices will result in removal of the registration from the voter rolls by the county boards of elections. State law requires the Secretary of State to remove individuals from the voter rolls who are not legally registered or eligible to vote.
“It’s important to recognize that some of these registrations may be the result of an honest mistake,” said LaRose. “These may be well-meaning people trying to pursue the American dream, and communication barriers sometimes result in a registration form being submitted in error. We need to help them get that cleared up before an accidental registration becomes an illegal vote that could result in a felony conviction or even deportation.”
The Secretary of State’s office is also taking steps to verify the citizenship status of other registration records flagged by the BMV as non-citizens. These records require additional cross-checks to ensure the registered individual remains a non-citizen. To help facilitate this review, the office has requested the following citizenship data sources from the Biden administration:
• Access to the federal SAVE database, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services resource used to verify citizenship status
• Access to citizenship-identifying records from Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration databases
• Federal district court records disclosing individuals disqualified from jury service due to a lack of United States citizenship
The citizenship verification initiative comes on the heels of an election integrity effort announced by Secretary LaRose last week that includes the annual audit of the statewide voter registration database and the launch of a routine but enhanced voter list maintenance process targeting registrations confirmed to be inactive over a four-year period.
