Ohio鈥檚 top elections official has asked the state鈥檚 attorney general to investigate 117 people who either registered to vote in Ohio or actually cast a ballot in the 2020 election. But that鈥檚 way down from previous elections.
Secretary of State Frank LaRose says 104 people registered illegally, and 13 voted illegally.
For comparison, the 13 apparently-illegal votes represent .0002% of the more than 5.8 million ballots cast in Ohio last year.
LaRose says his office cross-matched the voter rolls in the statewide voter registration database with the BMV鈥檚 and found discrepancies on citizenship. After trying to contact them, he鈥檚 asking Ohio鈥檚 attorney general to investigate.
鈥淩egistering to vote or voting as a non-citizen constitutes a fifth-degree felony which makes you subject to deportation so that鈥檚 one of the reasons we want to be so careful about this,鈥 LaRose says.
If the AG determines the next step is prosecution, that would be up to county prosecutors. 354 cases of non-citizens registering or voting were turned over investigators after the 2018 vote, and 385 were identified in 2016.
Copyright 2021 The Statehouse News Bureau. To see more, visit .