Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose warned election boards to be extra vigilant in the weeks before the November election after an investigation uncovered illegal voter registration forms circulating in Clark County.
In a media advisory, the secretary of state's office noted, "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." According to the Public Integrity Division, the form had a name written on it but nothing else. Under Ohio law, anyone who commits election falsification is guilty of a fifth-degree felony.
In a memo to election officials, Hun Yi, director of investigations for the Secretary of State's Public Integrity Division, said, “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."
“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," Yi added.
Clark County is home to Springfield, Ohio, where as many as 30,000 Haitians have unexpectedly migrated—most of them semi-legally after the Biden-Harris administration extended Temporary Protected Status to 300,000 Haitian migrants in June.
The mass migration to Springfield has taxed hospitals, schools, and social services as the population went from around 60,000 to more than 80,000 overnight.
LaRose's press release noted an ongoing investigation into "evidence of a pattern of fraudulent voter registration activity in multiple counties under the paid employment of a group called Black Fork Strategies."
Black Fork's website boasts that its goal is "building long-term progressive power" through canvassing and voter registration, among other things.
Last month, LaRose's office referred a number of election fraud cases involving Black Fork for prosecution.
"Prosecutors in 20 counties received referrals for violations involving petition forms to grant minor party status, petition forms to place a constitutional amendment regarding redistricting on the November ballot, and fraudulent voter registration forms submitted by canvassers working on behalf of Black Fork Strategies LLC," his office said. "The office’s Election Integrity Unit has been working to build the referrals to assist each county prosecutor with successful enforcement of the law, including criminal charges."
In July, Sherry Poland, director of elections for Hamilton County near Cincinnati, reported on multiple instances of fraud discovered by the board of elections, including a "stack of registration forms" that appear to be in the same handwriting submitted by a Black Fork canvasser.
Black Fork Strategies, an Ohio based progressive organization that touts itself as "Building Long-Term Progressive Power" has been identified by Hamilton county elections officials as having submitted a number of irregular voter registrations and changes.
— Vicki Magadonian #MAGA (@NoWarningShot_) July 28, 2024
A canvasser for Black… pic.twitter.com/uiTgPh1Awy
Alex Trianfaflou, a Hamilton County Board of Elections member and chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, said at the time, “The first thing I want to point out is, you know, we use words like ‘anomalies,’ ‘suspicion,’ and everything else because we try to be PC, I guess. But this is fraud, outright fraudulent behavior."
“Who’s responsible or how they’re responsible, that will be up to somebody other than me," he added. "It’s plain and obvious to me when you get this many registration cards with the very same handwriting that someone is trying to defraud the elections process in Hamilton County.”
Canvassers have a long history of taking advantage of disadvantaged individuals who may not speak English well enough to understand what they're being asked to sign.
Yi said in the press release on Thursday, “All county boards should be vigilant about the integrity of registration forms submitted by any public or private entity, especially third-party groups hiring paid operatives who often work on a bounty system based on the quantity, not quality, of their work."
“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,” LaRose warned. "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.”
The good news is that Ohio has been aggressive about cleaning up its voter rolls, using records from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. In addition, they are cross-checking "Social Security Administration records, federal jury pool data, and naturalization records maintained by the justice system, while repeatedly asking the Biden-Harris administration to grant access to additional DHS databases, specifically the Person Centric Query Service (PCQS) database, the Person Centric Identity Services (PCIS) database, and the Central Index System 2," according to the press release.
“The entire statewide voter registration database is cross-checked for citizenship status on an ongoing basis, and we’ve implemented a mandatory citizenship check of all new voter registrations,” Yi said in the memo. “If you have any reason to believe an individual or group is encouraging noncitizen participation in Ohio’s elections, please report that activity to our Election Integrity Unit immediately for investigation.”
This story was updated with additional information about the voter registration form.
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