Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said Monday he had forwarded evidence of alleged election violations to prosecutors in 20 counties, including Franklin, Hamilton, Summit and Stark.
“We take any allegation of wrongdoing in our elections seriously, whether it is a forged signature on a petition, a fraudulent voter registration form or a stolen vote,” LaRose said in a press release.
Voter fraud is rare, as numerous reports show. Many cases of alleged voter fraud turn out to be errors by voters or the administration, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.
Dan Lusheck, deputy communications director in the Ohio Secretary of State’s office, told the USA TODAY Network’s Ohio Bureau that the violations involve application forms for minor party status and the inclusion of a redistricting constitutional amendment on the November ballot.
He said the violations also involved fraudulent voter registration forms submitted by poll workers working for Black Fork Strategies, an Ohio-based company that provides voter registration and election advertising services.
Lusheck said the office suspects people have circulated petitions and certified signatures that were “obviously false or forged and/or contained fictitious names.”
What do the groups involved say about this step?
Loretta Kane of Black Fork Strategies said the company has cooperated fully with the Ohio Board of Elections and the Office of the Secretary of State on all information related to the voter registration program.
“As we are committed to fair elections, we have provided Secretary LaRose’s office with information about former poll workers and our internal quality control process,” Kane said in a statement. “In 2023 and 2024, Black Fork Strategies did not participate in any large-scale petition drives, nor did we receive any inquiries from the Secretary of State’s office or any of the county election boards regarding petition work.”
Chris Davey, spokesman for Citizens Not Politicians, the campaign behind the November redistricting change, said in a statement that Black Fork Strategies was not a paid distributor for the change and none of the signatures submitted by the campaign were collected by Black Fork Strategies.
“None of this has any impact on the established validity of the over half a million valid signatures that Secretary LaRose certified to get us on the November 5 ballot,” he said.
Which districts are affected?
Luschek said the transfers were made to the following counties in Ohio:
- butler
- champagne
- Cuyahoga
- Delaware
- Fairfield
- Franklin
- Hamilton
- Harrison
- Jackson
- Knox
- Lick
- Mercer
- Montgomery
- Richland
- Strong
- summit
- Trumbull
- Tuscarawas
- labyrinth
- Wayne
USA TODAY Network Ohio Office reporter Jessie Balmert contributed reporting.
Erin Glynn is a reporter for the Ohio Bureau of the USA TODAY Network, which covers the Columbus Dispatch, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.
