Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, is pressing lawmakers to pass legislation so his office can ask Ohioans to prove they are a citizen when they register to vote.
LaRose sent a letter Thursday to Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) and Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) requesting the legislature’s permission to do so, according to a news release from his office. Although LaRose has “exclusive authority” over the state’s voter registration forms, he said present state law does not let him question proof of citizenship on the papers.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that Arizona can reject voter registration applications if the applicant does not include proof of citizenship.
"American elections are only for American citizens. This is common sense and it's also the law,” LaRose said in the news release.
Right now, lawmakers are not scheduled to return for voting sessions until after the November election, and since the two-year legislative session ends in December, bills that do not make it to Gov. Mike DeWine's desk would need to be reintroduced.
Catherine Turcer, executive director for the voting rights organization Common Cause Ohio, said in an interview that canvassers statewide are increasing their registration efforts ahead of this year’s election. She said she believes the idea of these volunteers asking passersby for their birth certificates or naturalization papers is “ludicrous.”
“We attest when we register to vote that we are citizens of the United States,” Turcer said. “We attest where we live and we provide our Social Security number, we provide our driver's license. There's no reason to think that that is not adequate.”
The onus is and should stay on elections officials, both in LaRose's office and at county boards of elections, to verify a person's citizenship proof, she said.
LaRose's request also comes on the heels of his referral of a tiny fraction of Ohio’s registered voters—about 600 among eight million—to county prosecutors for being wrongly registered voters because of their noncitizen status. Of 597 noncitizens registered statewide, he said he believes 138 of them voted in the past year.
Voter fraud is rare, and in Ohio, noncitizens can't vote legally.
Ohioans reaffirmed that in 2022 when they ratified Issue 2, a statewide ballot measure that codified a ban on noncitizen participation in local elections.
