COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio’s elections chief says a review by his office found that 145 non-citizens were registered to vote, with 27 casting ballots in previous elections in a state with nearly 8 million registered voters.
Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted said Thursday that those who voted have been referred to the state’s attorney general for further investigation.
Husted says he’s asked the federal government for access to information that would allow his office to more accurately verify that those on Ohio’s voter rolls are U.S. citizens.
“I am committed to my responsibility to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat, and with the cooperation of the federal government we can do this without any additional burden on the voters,” he said. “Maintaining accurate voter rolls is an important part of our ongoing mission to protect the integrity of our elections.”
Husted’s office says he recently wrote President Barack Obama and testified before Congress to ask the federal government to give states real-time access to searchable databases of non-citizens who have valid Social Security numbers.
Husted told reporters at a news conference that there’s no evidence suggesting that the non-citizens’ votes impacted the outcomes of 70 recent nail-biting contests.
He said his office identified the individuals using information from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
Ohio has about 7.7 million registered voters.