The Ohio Secretary of State office issued a press release Thursday that notified the state’s 88 county boards of elections of an investigation by the Election Integrity Unit which uncovered illegal voter registration forms in Creole (a language common in Haiti).
“The office’s Election Integrity Unit recently concluded an investigation into the origins of an illegal voter registration form translated into the Haitian Creole language. The Clark County Board of Elections reported this form to our office after rejecting its submission by a local applicant,” the press release said Thursday.
The state government is monitoring third-party groups and paid canvassers for potential fraud.
“This is a reminder to all of our elections officials to be vigilant as we enter the final weeks of voter registration eligibility for the 2024 general election,” Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said in the press release. “We’re continuing to aggressively pursue third-party groups and paid canvassers who’ve been submitting fraudulent registration forms, and we’re cracking down on the use of illegal forms that aren’t authorized by my office as the law requires. These investigations are happening even as we continue to broaden the enforcement of Ohio’s constitutional citizenship voting requirement.”
Following the discovery of one of these illegal forms, the Secretary of State’s office is notifying county boards of elections to be ‘vigilant’ on voter registration documents.
“The Board confirmed they’ve only received one of these unauthorized forms, but they rightly recognized it as illegal and worked with my team to track down its source with the help of a county government assistance office,” Hun Yi, Director of Investigations for the office’s Public Integrity Division, said in a memo to elections officials, according to the press release. “The form was erroneously included among others outsourced to a foreign language translation service. It garnered national attention considering the high number of Haitian refugees that have recently migrated to the Springfield area, and it serves as an important reminder that boards and designated voter registration agencies should be vigilant about the use of forms submitted to their office.”
That memo also detailed the Secretary of State’s efforts to enhance its ongoing statewide audit of Ohio’s voter rolls for citizenship compliance.
Using records provided by the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, it is able to verify registrant’s citizenship status, according to Thursday’s press release.
The Secretary of State’s office is also conducting extensive cross-checks of Social Security Administration records, federal jury pool data and naturalization records maintained by the justice system.
It has also repeatedly asked the Biden Administration to grant access to additional DHS databases such as the Person Centric Query Service (PCQS) database, the Person Centric Identity Services (PCIS) database and the Central Index System 2, according to Thursday’s press release.
Director Yi also stated in the press release that the state government has implemented a mandatory citizenship check of all new voter registrations.
The memo mentioned in the press release also discussed the ongoing investigations into ‘evidence of a pattern of fraudulent voter registration activity’ in multiple Ohio counties, said to be under the ‘paid employment of a group’ called ‘Black Fork Strategies’.