LaRose asks attorney general to investigate hundreds of alleged election fraud cases
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced that his office’s Election Integrity Unit has sent evidence of more than 600 alleged election law violations to the Ohio Attorney General’s office.
Ohio law empowers the Secretary of State 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.” The Secretary of State’s office has referred hundreds of these matters to county prosecutors since Secretary LaRose took office in 2019.
“Unfortunately, many of these referrals have not been pursued by law enforcement, sometimes by choice and other times due to limited prosecutorial capacity,” said Secretary LaRose. “State law gives the attorney general the authority to take up these referrals if the prosecuting attorney doesn’t prosecute the violations within a reasonable time. The only way to maintain Ohio’s high standard of election integrity is to enforce the law whenever it’s broken.”
During the first five years of Secretary LaRose’s administration, his office referred 633 individuals to law enforcement for allegations of apparently voting multiple times in the same state or two different states, election fraud involving deceased individuals, as well as registration and voting violations by noncitizens. Of those referred, 621 have not been charged by their respective county prosecutor.
“We respect prosecutorial discretion, and we don’t necessarily expect all 633 referrals to lead to criminal charges, but only 12 out of 633 shows a second set of eyes might be needed here to determine whether prosecution of these crimes is justified,” wrote Hun Yi, Director of Investigations for the Secretary of State’s Public Integrity Division, in a letter to Attorney General Dave Yost. “Accordingly, county prosecutors have had more than ‘a reasonable time’ to prosecute the violations and apparently have chosen not to do so. We hereby respectfully request that you use your authority under Ohio Revised Code Section 109.95 to review these cases, utilizing your own discretion, and prosecute the violations as you see appropriate.”
The referral includes a breakdown of the alleged violations by election year and violation type, as well as relevant documentation provided by the boards of elections and other elections jurisdictions substantiating the violations.
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