The state attorney general and several county prosecutors will be reviewing cases of potential voter fraud where people are accused of casting a vote in a different state then casting another in Ohio during the 2018 election.
Secretary of State Frank LaRose says his office has found 18 incidents where a person voted in Ohio and another state during the 2018 general election. Of those 18 incidents, there are ten cases when the second vote was cast in Ohio. The alleged crime is in the second vote, so those ten cases have been referred to the Ohio Attorney General's Office and the prosecutor's office where the vote was cast.
"The reason is simple and obvious: each of us deserve an equal voice in our democracy and allowing one voter to cast multiple ballots diminishes the value of the legally cast ballot of each other voter," LaRose wrote in a letter to the attorney general.
LaRose emphasizes that cases of voter fraud and voter suppression are "exceedingly rare and certainly not systemic."
Jen Miller, League of Women Voters of Ohio executive director, says they support an investigation into any wrongdoing, adding that this proves that voter fraud is rare in the state.
"It's ten votes out of almost 5 million cast so very, very, very minute problem but part of preventing it from becoming a problem is by prosecuting malicious attempts to double vote," says Miller.
LaRose says these cases were discovered through an elections data tool, Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which tracks potential fraud around the country through the collaboration of other states.
Copyright 2019 The Statehouse News Bureau
