The Republican supermajority in the Ohio General Assembly — with the blessing of Frank LaRose, Ohio’s chief elections officer — has declared war after the battle is over.
Ohio had an election earlier this month that was pulled off with nary a hitch — an election where Republicans did right well for themselves, winning Ohio for Donald Trump and flipping a U.S. Senate seat from blue to red.
One might think the Republican legislature would take some time to smell the roses, maybe do a victory lap or two.
But, instead, they came back in a lame duck session and immediately began considering legislation they say would improve Ohio’s election system, a system they also say is already the “gold standard” for the nation.
State Sen. Niraj Antani, R-Miamisburg, introduced a bill requiring Ohioans show proof of citizenship to register to vote or update their existing registration.
Two Republicans in the Ohio Senate — Theresa Gavarone of Bowling Green and Andrew Brenner of Delaware — introduced another bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote. And Gavarone and Brenner want to go one step further — their bill calls for the elimination of ballot drop boxes.
Drop-off boxes are already limited to one per county, thanks to LaRose.
RELATED: 6 facts about false noncitizen voting claims and the election
Voting rights groups in Ohio say the GOP’s proposals would do nothing but make it harder for Ohioans to cast their ballots.
The boxes are not just in use during the early voting period. They are available year round for people to drop off voter registration forms, change of address forms and candidate filings.
“If we do indeed have safe and secure elections, why do we have to have new laws to make it more complicated?” said Mia Lewis, associate director of Common Cause Ohio, a prominent voting rights organization.
When it comes to drop boxes, the sponsors of the Senate bill say there is a potential problem, pointing to incidents in Oregon and Washington State in October, where the contents of drop boxes were set on fire and hundreds of ballots were destroyed.
Nothing even remotely like that has ever happened in Ohio.
The boxes used by Ohio boards of elections weigh 600 pounds, are fire-proof, bomb-proof, bolted to the ground and under 24/7 video surveillance.
They can only be opened by one Democrat and one Republican working for the board of elections, each with a separate key.
Gavarone insisted Ohio remains the “gold standard” for election integrity but says her bill “addresses areas of the election law we can improve, including an extra layer of protection to enforce our state constitution’s citizenship requirement.”
“This is a simple fix that strengthens trust and integrity in our institutions,” said Gavarone, who is likely to run for secretary of state when LaRose is term-limited out in 2026.
Both the House and Senate bills would require people to prove they are U.S. citizens when they register to vote.
ANALYSIS: LaRose found 137 non-citizens registered to vote. It's not as serious as it sounds
The bills would require the same list of documents to prove citizenship, such as a U.S. passport, birth certificate or naturalization certificate.
But they could also use existing records from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles. County boards of elections could check with the Ohio BMV to confirm that a person applying for a driver’s license provided proof of citizenship.
In fact, non-citizens voting — which is already illegal under federal law — is so very rare in Ohio as to be virtually non-existent.
In September, LaRose referred the election integrity cases of 597 people to county prosecutors in Ohio for investigation.
In nearly all of the cases, county prosecutors said they didn’t have time or the resources to chase these people down.
So LaRose turned to his fellow Republican, Attorney General Dave Yost, to investigate the cases.
Yost ended up securing indictments for six of the 597, charging them with voting illegally sometime between 2008 and 2020.
That’s six out of over 8 million registered voters in Ohio.
And, as it turned out, one of the indicted persons died in 2022.
“This is something that is vanishingly rare in Ohio,” Lewis said. “And when it does [happen], it is usually because of an innocent mistake.” Mistakes like voting without updating your registration after moving across state lines, or voting in-person after returning an absentee ballot you received in the mail.
Many voting rights activists believe this relentless pursuit of nearly non-existent non-citizens voting in Ohio elections is Ohio GOP elected officials mimicking the anti-immigrant rhetoric of Donald Trump.
“This is a trendy thing now, going after immigrants,” Lewis said. “It’s not about solving a real problem.”
RELATED: How Republicans mainstreamed the baseless idea of noncitizen voting in 2024
If this Republican legislation isn’t passed in this lame duck session, it would have to be re-introduced in the new Ohio General Assembly that convenes in January.
But with Ohio Republicans having a veto-proof majority in the House and Senate, it is highly likely the two proposed bills could be combined, pass both houses, and be signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine.
Lewis said this almost non-existent problem of non-citizens voting could be solved very simply.
“How about we just print something in big, bold red letters at top of every voter registration form,’’ Lewis said. “It would say, ‘If you are not a citizen, don’t fill out this form.’
“That would settle it.”
