Ohio investigating cases of illegal voting
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Ohio Attorney General David Yost is investigating cases of illegal voting in the state and so far, it has resulted in six indictments.
How did we get here?
Back in August, Secretary of State Frank LaRose referred 579 election integrity cases to Yost’s office; 56 additional cases were filed in September.
Of those cases, 138 of them have to do with illegal voting, and 121 of those are brand new and have never been investigated before. The remaining cases involve improper voter registration.
Yost’s office can only bring forward charges on illegal voting cases.
“We also have the authority to investigate cases that are referred to us, but we do not have the authority to prosecute registration cases,” Yost said. “The bulk of the cases that were referred to us in August and then a few more in September are not within this office's authority to bring a criminal prosecution, even if we might think it was warranted.”
Yost said he does not think the focus should be on the cases where no voting occurred.
“I need to have sit down with the Secretary of State about the value of those cases where there was no voting,” Yost said. “I think that we ought to be focused on the voting.”
Who is indicted?
Of those 138 cases, Yost said he brought seven to a grand jury so far. The grand jury indicted six of those cases. The only one that did not result in an indictment involved a student at Oberlin who “appeared to have voted in Washington state and in Ohio in 2018.”
“We were able to prove that someone using his identity voted in both places,” Yost said. “We were not able to prove that it was him that did that.”
The six cases that did result in charges all involve non-citizens who are legal residents of the U.S. but have not been naturalized and therefore cannot legally vote.
“This is important,” Yost said. “The right to vote is sacred. It is part of our exercise of sovereignty as a self-governing people. If you're not a citizen, you don't get a say, period. And there ought to be consequences if you act differently, if you break that law.”
Three of the cases come from Franklin County, one from Cuyahoga County, one from Summit County, and one from Portage County.
The years the alleged offenses were committed in these cases date back to 2008, with the most recent happening in 2020. Each person indicted voted in several elections illegally, Yost said.
Whether or not they knew they were breaking the law does not matter, Yost said, because Ohio law says that illegal voting is a “strict liability offense” which means the suspect is guilty if they committed the crime regardless of what they thought.
“Each defendant is going to have their own view of what they were or weren't allowed to do,” Yost said. “My point is, under the law, it doesn't matter what they thought.”
The fourth-degree felony charge could result in a maximum sentence of 18 months in prison and five years of parole, but Yost said he thinks it is unlikely prison time will be the result of these cases, saying it would be a waste of resources if so.
“The way I look at it, these cases, none of them have the factors making the offense more serious, justifying a prison term,” he said. “At a high level, absent a criminal history or being part of a criminal enterprise, I don't see these as being good use of expensive state prison beds.”
A few of the arraignments have already been scheduled. Yost said now a unit within his office called “special prosecutions” will try the cases across the state.
“These are career prosecutors who travel around the state and do limited prosecutions,” he said. “Usually, we're invited in because of a staffing shortage or because of a conflict of interest for the local prosecutor, we're the backstop there. In addition, that group handles the small number of cases like this where we have original jurisdiction. That crew will handle these cases in the local counties where they've been indicted.”
Does this impact elections?
Yost emphasized that these indictments should not be worrisome to Ohioans; in fact, he said it is the opposite.
“I think that what this tells Ohioans is, first of all, there's very small numbers of non-citizens who have voted,” he said. “Secondly, that the secretary of state's on the job and has detected those folks and sent them out to the appropriate authorities to be held accountable. A law that is not enforced isn't a law. This law is being enforced. And I think this should enable everybody to take a deep breath and be more confident that our elections are, in fact, safe and secure and the non-citizens are not going to vote.”
As for impact of past elections, Yost said the voting irregularities have been too rare to really impact any outcome.
“One hundred thirty-eight cases of actual voting, that's simply not enough that it would have changed any of those elections,” he said.
But Yost said he thinks the new photo I.D. requirement to vote in Ohio will help curb this issue.
“This is a problem that exists with some of these old cases that will, I don't think, be an issue in the 2024 cycle in Ohio, because the new law provides photo ID,” Yost said. “Identity requirements in Ohio were fairly elastic and we obviously had some people who were not citizens that voted. I think that will become much more difficult and the current under current law.”
Yost said that photo requirement will also make it easier to try these cases, like the one with the student who allegedly voted in two states.
“Every criminal case requires identification,” he said. “You have to show identity and that's going to be easier now that Ohio requires a photo ID.”
As far as non-citizens go, if their ID has a “non-citizen” designation on it, but have recently become naturalized, they will need to show additional proof that they are a citizen in order to cast their ballot.