“We’ll work with the BMV to do a quality control check on their voter registration process, but they’ve assured us their system is compliant with the law,” said Dan Lusheck, spokesman for LaRose in a statement to the Dayton Daily News on Tuesday.
“Ohio has a robust system of voter verification. 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,” Lusheck said.
On Thursday Andy Wilson, director of the Department of Public Safety, which oversees the BMV, said he is confident in the BMV’s electronic system for voter registration applications handled as part of the issuance of driver’s licenses and state ID.
“We want to protect the integrity so that only people allowed to vote are voting and we want to protect the ability of our citizens to participate in free and fair elections,” Wilson said.
Wilson said that electronic system only allows citizens to submit voter registrations.
But he said the BMV does not review, or require documents, from people who complete paper voter registration applications at the BMV separately from getting a driver’s license or state ID, or those who drop off their voter registration applications there. Those voter registration applications are then forwarded by the BMV to local boards of election for processing.
LaRose’s office checks voter registrations using information from the BMV, the Department of Homeland Security’s federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, the Social Security Administration, federal jury pool data, and other resources.
“After a thorough investigation, we’re confident that there are no systemic issues that would lead to noncitizens being offered the chance to register to vote,” Lusheck said late Tuesday, four days after publication of the Dayton Daily News findings.
Lindsey Bohrer, spokeswoman for the BMV, said it “has worked closely with the secretary of state’s office and the boards of elections in the three counties cited in your article to identify and review any examples where a non-citizen was registered to vote as part of a BMV transaction.”
She said so far the BMV got one example from Warren County, that originated with a transaction in 2007 before the BMV’s current safeguards were in place, but had not gotten specific examples from Montgomery and Greene counties.
“We will continue to review any specific cases that are presented to the BMV for review, but no evidence has been provided that would support the allegations that the BMV is asking noncitizens to register to vote,” Bohrer said.
In 2018 the BMV began scanning and storing images of identification documents required from people seeking a driver’s license or state ID and also began an electronic check of federal immigration documents kept by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said Bret Crow, director of communications for the Department of Public Safety. In addition, as part of the federal Real ID Act, the BMV began issuing credentials from a central location after a review of documentation, rather than providing them over-the-counter, he said.
In previous comments BMV Registrar Charlie Norman said it is impossible for a noncitizen to register to vote at the BMV because certain documents must be provided before a person can register.
But the Dayton Daily News investigation found mistakes at the BMV have resulted in some noncitizens being registered to vote when they get their state ID or driver’s license, including when the person says they are not a citizen, according to elections officials in Montgomery, Greene and Warren counties, the Warren County prosecutor and a local immigration attorney.
“We’ve had a disproportionate number of these issues happening at the BMV,” said Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell, who’s been prosecutor since 2011 and is a former a member of the Warren County Board of Elections.
Brian Sleeth, director of the Warren County board, recently reviewed forms from 300 people flagged by LaRose’s office because records showed they were potentially noncitizens registered to vote. Most turned out to be naturalized citizens, and those who were not were removed from the voter registration rolls, Sleeth said.
“I talked to a few of these noncitizen voters that got registered and they said the BMV told them that the boards would figure out if they should be registered or not. But Charlie Norman said that if the person at the BMV is not a citizen then a voter registration card will not print,” Sleeth said. “Those recent noncitizen voter notices that we received, there were a few of these voters that registered at the BMV so I am not sure where the disconnect is.”
Montgomery County Board of Elections Director Jeff Rezabek and Alisha Beeler, director of the Greene County board, both recalled cases where where noncitizens were mistakenly registered to vote by the BMV even though they had correctly identified themselves as noncitizens on their registration application. Both said the individuals did not try to vote.
Kathleen Kersh, senior attorney and project director at Advocates for Basic Legal Equality (ABLE) in Dayton, said in her 11 years of working with immigrant communities she has never met a noncitizen who knowingly registered to vote. But she has found some who had registration applications filed without their consent by the BMV when they got a driver’s license.
There can be delays in notification of naturalization, mistakes in the documentation at government offices, or misunderstandings when people are asked if they want to register to vote either at the BMV or when approached in public by people registering voters, said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, a nonpartisan group focused on voting rights and election issues.
“It could easily be that somebody got confused, especially somebody who doesn’t speak English,” Turcer said. “If someone inadvertently, inappropriately registered to vote that is very different than somebody intentionally casting a ballot.”
It is illegal in the U.S. for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and the Ohio Constitution prohibits noncitizens from voting in any elections. People must attest that they are citizens when they register but federal law prohibits requiring proof of citizenship for federal elections. LaRose proposes changing state law to require that Ohioans to prove citizenship before registering.
Voter fraud rare
There are about 8 million registered voters in Ohio.
Voter fraud by American citizens or noncitizens in the U.S. is exceedingly rare, according to studies by groups such as the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice, the conservative Heritage Foundation and the libertarian-leaning CATO Institute.
Since he took office in 2019 LaRose has announced more than 1,000 cases of alleged election fraud, mostly involving noncitizens allegedly registering to vote and about 200 who allegedly voted. Earlier this month he said 12 cases had resulted in prosecutions but his office did not say how many were convicted. In August LaRose also announced he had ordered 499 noncitizens removed from the registration rolls.
“The claim that every one of those people registered accidentally seems to defy the odds. Nevertheless, we’ll always check out every allegation to make sure Ohio voters have absolute confidence in the integrity of our elections,” Lusheck said.
The BMV and many public assistance agencies are required to offer voter registration under the 1993 National Voter Registration Act.
Norman said people who apply for a driver’s license or state ID must be Ohio residents and provide their full legal name, date of birth, and Social Security number and provide documents such as a passport, birth certificate or naturalization paperwork.
A noncitizen must show original federal immigration documents that the BMV checks electronically against a federal immigration database. State law requires that their license say they are a “noncitizen,” Norman said.
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Ohio BMV’s mistakes led to noncitizens getting registered to vote, officials say
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