Recently, the Ohio state secretary discovered that over 100 non-U.S. citizens had voted in the recent election in the Buckeye State. After a lengthy audit of voting records, state officials found that hundreds of nonresidents had been registered to vote. Reportedly, 138 non-citizens were referred to the state’s attorney general after the findings.
Secretary Frank LaRose emphasized his duty to protect the integrity of his state’s election, stating, “I’m duty-bound to make sure people who haven’t yet earned citizenship in this country do not vote in our elections. We’ve so far identified 597 individuals who’ve registered to vote in Ohio despite not being citizens of the United States, as our state constitution requires.”
LaRose added that noncitizens who have violated the law and voted will be prosecuted. “The evidence includes 138 individuals who appear to have cast a ballot in an Ohio election during the time state and federal records show they lacked citizenship status. The law requires me to refer these individuals to the attorney general, and that’s what we’re doing today,” he continued.
The American Tribune recently reported on an audit of Ohio’s voter roll that determined 499 non-citizens were registered to vote. “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,” according to a statement from LaRose’s office, indicating that the individuals in question had failed to respond to inquiries about their citizenship status.
“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,” LaRose said. “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.”
“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. However, the secretary noted that he must protect his state’s elections. “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.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson recently visited the southern border where he stressed the importance of passing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act) to prevent illegal immigrants from participating in elections 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 below:
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