COLUMBUS, Ohio — Six people were recently indicted for illegal voting in past elections, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced during a Tuesday press conference.
In August, Secretary of State Frank LaRose referred evidence to the Attorney General's Office that 597 people who were not U.S. citizens were registered to vote in Ohio. LaRose says 138 of those appear to have voted in past elections. The Attorney General's Office is focusing on those 138. Now, six of them have been indicted for illegal voting.
"We keep elections honest and fraud rare by enforcing the law," LaRose said in a statement on social media. "That takes time and persistence, but this is proof that where the evidence is pursued justice is served."
Yost said the bulk of the cases are not within the office’s authority to bring a criminal prosecution. Most of the cases were brought up due to improper registration.
Yost said what is common in the cases of those indicted this week was that the person was a lawful and permanent resident but was not a United States citizen and was not allowed to vote.
"Our legislature has provided a serious penalty if a non-citizen tries to exercise the power that belongs to 'we the people,' the citizens of this country, not just any person who happens to be here," Yost said during the news conference.
There was a seventh case against a student at Oberlin that the grand jury declined to indict. Yost said the student had voted in the state of Washington and in Ohio in 2018.
Those indicted on one or more counts of illegal voting include one person in Cuyahoga County, one in Summit County and one in Portage County. The other three all live in Franklin County. Their ages range from 32 to 78.
League of Women Voters of Ohio Director Jen Miller says investigating possible cases of fraud is important because they want voters to trust Ohio elections and take part in them.
"I think these cases demonstrate that Ohio's elections have safeguards in place that can prevent, prosecute and catch fraud, but it also shows that fraud is exceedingly rare," Miller said.
Yost agrees the number of alleged fraud cases is very small. Consider that Ohio has more than eight million registered voters.
Yost says under Ohio law, it doesn't matter if a person intended to vote illegally or not, it is still a crime. Illegal voting is a fourth-degree felony that carries a possible 18-month prison sentence. He doesn't expect the punishment to be that harsh if any of the six are found guilty.
"This is a matter of holding them accountable for violation of the law, but I don't anticipate prison time," Yost said.
Yost says these six indictments are only part of the first batch of cases his office investigated. He says more investigations are being done, and he expects more cases to be filed.