Ohio’s secretary of state ought to be doing everything he can to ensure a smooth and fair election. Instead, he’s throwing up roadblocks to voting at the last minute — obstacles that a court has already found to be unconstitutional.
In Ohio, precinct election officials can challenge voters, requiring them to swear in writing that they are eligible. Until this month, voters whose citizenship status was challenged could vote after signing a state form. But earlier this month, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) revised that form to ask challenged voters whether they are native or naturalized citizens and where they were born, and also require them to provide documentary proof of citizenship. If they cannot provide that proof at the polls, they have to cast a provisional ballot and return to the board of elections office with documentation by November 9.
This new form, which LaRose made no effort to advise the public about, not only upsets decades of established election procedure but also violates a court order from 2006. That injunction came in a lawsuit challenging the same documentation requirement LaRose has just reimposed. The case was brought by several Ohio voters and voting rights groups, represented by the Brennan Center, American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Ohio, and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. In the original case, the court ruled that the requirements violated the 14th Amendment and other constitutional protections.
With early voting already underway in Ohio, the unannounced and confusing form could prevent some naturalized citizens from having their vote counted in the election. Upon learning about this new form, several plaintiffs from the original case and their representatives rushed back to federal court to ask Judge Christopher Boyko to enforce his 2006 order. The judge has fast-tracked our emergency motion.
LaRose’s actions come amid a wave of disinformation sowing baseless doubts about whether states have adequate safeguards to ensure that only citizens vote. In fact, Ohio and other states have highly effective safeguards. Noncitizen voting is illegal and vanishingly uncommon.
Even the Ohio attorney general acknowledges this fact. In a recent press release announcing six indictments of Ohio residents who allegedly voted between 2008 and 2020 when they lacked U.S. citizenship, he said, “Irregularities like this are rare, and this is a small number of cases.”
In fact, these indictments — even if they result in conviction — will reflect less than one in every million votes cast in Ohio. And overly aggressive purges of voters flagged based on unreliable citizenship information have jeopardized the voting rights of a larger fraction of naturalized citizen voters.
As we approach Election Day, it is crucial for all Ohioans to have equal access to the ballot. Secretary LaRose’s unlawful new requirements brazenly violate voters’ rights and should be removed immediately.
