According to recent reports, Ohio officials are purging hundreds of non-citizens from their voter role after an election audit. A review of the Buckeye State’s voter role determined that there were approximately 499 individuals who were not American citizens but were registered to vote. Based on data from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, it was concluded that the individuals in question were designated as non-citizens.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose explained that the non-citizens had failed to respond to inquiries sent by the state to confirm their citizenship status. “These individuals failed to respond to notices from the Secretary of State’s office asking that they either confirm their citizenship status or cancel their registration,” LaRose’s office said in a statement.
LaRose further emphasized his oath to uphold Ohio’s constitution, which mandates that only legal citizens of the United States are allowed to participate in the state’s elections. Therefore, the secretary of state is compelled to ensure that there aren’t non-citizens registered to vote. However, he maintained that he would “congratulate” and welcome them to vote once attaining citizenship.
“I swore an oath to uphold the constitution of our state, and that document clearly states that only United States citizens can participate in Ohio elections. That means I’m duty-bound to make sure people who haven’t yet earned citizenship in this country aren’t voting. If or when they do become citizens, I’ll be the first one to congratulate them and welcome them to the franchise, but until then the law requires us to remove ineligible registrations to prevent illegal voting,” he said.
The state official noted that he wants to give the individuals the “benefit of the doubt” but can’t allow a violation of the state’s laws in the voting process. “I want to give these folks the benefit of the doubt and say that most of them didn’t intend to break the law,” LaRose added. “We want to make sure a mistaken registration doesn’t become an illegal vote. We also want to make sure that lawfully registered citizens can participate seamlessly in the process.”
The American Tribune recently reported on comments from House Speaker Mike Johnson, who traveled to the southern border to deliver a press conference on the the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act), which seeks to protect the integrity of our democratic republic and prevent illegal immigrants from participating in the election by requiring proof of citizenship to vote.
“Kamala Harris and 198 House Democrats want to allow illegal aliens to decide American elections right now, and every noncitizen can do that, and there’s no real impediment except the honor system. We don’t believe that is going to work. Our elections are too narrow and too important to allow this to happen, especially since the administration is now on track to report 10 million encounters with illegals before October. That’s the official number. We believe, I personally believe, members of Congress believe the number is probably closer to somewhere in the 16 million person range,” Johnson said.
Watch Johnson’s remarks below:
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