LaRose reminds elections officials to be vigilant after investigation uncovers alleged illegal voter registration forms
Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced that his Election Integrity Unit has issued a warning to Ohio’s 88 county boards of elections after an investigation uncovered the alleged use of illegal voter registration forms by a government agency.
“This is a reminder to all of our elections officials to be vigilant as we enter the final weeks of voter registration eligibility for the 2024 general election,” said Secretary LaRose. “We’re continuing to aggressively pursue third-party groups and paid canvassers who’ve been submitting fraudulent registration forms, and we’re cracking down on the use of illegal forms that aren’t authorized by my office as the law requires. These investigations are happening even as we continue to broaden the enforcement of Ohio’s constitutional citizenship voting requirement.”
The office’s Election Integrity Unit recently concluded an investigation into the origins of an alleged illegal voter registration form translated into the Haitian Creole language. The Clark County Board of Elections reported this form to the Secretary of State’s office after rejecting its submission by a local applicant.
“The Board confirmed they’ve only received one of these unauthorized forms, but they rightly recognized it as illegal and worked with my team to track down its source with the help of a county government assistance office,” said Hun Yi, Director of Investigations for the office’s Public Integrity Division, in a memo to elections officials. “The form was erroneously included among others outsourced to a foreign language translation service. It garnered national attention considering the high number of Haitian refugees that have recently migrated to the Springfield area, and it serves as an important reminder that boards and designated voter registration agencies should be vigilant about the use of forms submitted to their office.”
The memo also highlights the Secretary of State’s efforts to enhance the ongoing statewide audit of Ohio’s voter rolls for citizenship compliance, using records provided by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database.
The office is also implementing more extensive cross-checks of Social Security Administration records, federal jury pool data, and naturalization records maintained by the justice system, while repeatedly asking the Biden-Harris administration to grant access to additional DHS databases, specifically the Person Centric Query Service (PCQS) database, the Person Centric Identity Services (PCIS) database and the Central Index System 2.
“The entire statewide voter registration database is cross-checked for citizenship status on an ongoing basis, and we’ve implemented a mandatory citizenship check of all new voter registrations,” Director Yi said in the memo to elections officials. “If you have any reason to believe an individual or group is encouraging noncitizen participation in Ohio’s elections, please report that activity to our Election Integrity Unit immediately for investigation.”
The memo concludes with a notice of ongoing investigations into evidence of a pattern of alleged fraudulent voter registration activity in multiple counties under the paid employment of a group called Black Fork Strategies.
“All county boards should be vigilant about the integrity of registration forms submitted by any public or private entity, especially third-party groups hiring paid operatives who often work on a bounty system based on the quantity, not quality, of their work,” Yi reminded the boards.
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