(The Center Square) – Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose wants the Trump administration to do what county prosecutors and the state’s attorney general have been reluctant to do.
LaRose, a Republican, wants the U.S. Justice Department to prosecute 1,200 criminal cases related to elections, even though county prosecutors and Republican Attorney General Dave Yost have passed on most of the cases.
“I have made numerous criminal referrals throughout my administration, with much of the evidence related to unlawful registration and voting activity,” LaRose wrote in a letter Tuesday to the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “These cases have encountered varying degrees of adjudication from Ohio’s 88 county prosecutors. We now have an executive administration at the White House and the Department of Justice that has expressed an interest in actively reviewing and potentially prosecuting evidence of federal election crimes.”
Since 2019, LaRose has sent more than 600 potential election fraud crimes to state prosecutors. After only 12 got action from local prosecutors, LaRose asked Yost for help in November.
Out of 140 people sent to Yost to prosecute, only seven were presented to a grand jury, which returned an indictment on six of those.
Yost has called voting fraud rare.
“Irregularities like this are rare, and this is a small number of cases,” Yost said when the indictments were issued. “We should all be confident in the upcoming election, knowing that the laws are being enforced and will continue to be enforced.”
LaRose, though, wants more done.
With the letter to the federal government, he also included what he called evidence related to 1,084 noncitizens who appear to have registered to vote in Ohio. Of those, he said 167 appear to have voted in a federal election at some point since 2018.
He also sent information about 99 people who he said appear to have voted in two states in the same election, along with 16 people who appear to have voted in Ohio twice in the same election.
He also wants prosecution of 14 people he said appear to have voted after their date of death, four people who allegedly engaged in ballot harvesting and two others who he says registered to vote at a residence where they were not entitled to register.
“Ohio has earned its reputation as the gold standard, and our Election Integrity Unit continues to prove why,” LaRose said in a statement. “We work tirelessly to ensure that every eligible voter’s voice is heard, and anyone who tries to cheat the system will face serious consequences.”
