COLUMBUS, Ohio—Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office has quietly begun requiring suspected non-citizens to show proof of citizenship at the polls before being allowed to vote, despite a 2006 federal court ruling that such a requirement is unconstitutional, according to a new lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio.
The emergency federal court filing seeks to block the revised policy, which was put in place just weeks before the Nov. 5 general election.
The motivation for changing the form, according to LaRose spokesman Dan Lusheck, was to address a fairly narrow problem: allowing newly naturalized citizens to cast a ballot even when they haven‘t been yet able to obtain a driver’s license or state ID card that doesn‘t have the word “noncitizen” printed on it. However, the ACLU claims, the ramifications of the revisions made by LaRose’s office go beyond just that particular situation.
For the past 18 years in Ohio, when would-be voters’ citizenship status was called into question, they would be allowed to cast a ballot if they took an oath that they were a citizen. That stems from a 2006 federal court ruling throwing out a state law that required naturalized citizens to show their certificate of naturalization in order to vote at the polls.
However, at some point earlier this month, LaRose’s office modified the written form used in such situations to require each person being challenged to not only take an oath but also show “required documentation and photo identification proving their citizenship.”
Any would-be voter who doesn’t have those documents handy, according to the form, can cast a provisional ballot, which is only counted if the person provides the necessary documentation to local elections officials within four days of the election.
The modified form does not lay out exactly which documents are acceptable to prove citizenship, though it mentions a certificate of naturalization.
A 2023 state law requires all Ohio voters to show one of eight types of government-issued photo IDs in order to cast a ballot at the polls.
Some of those options can be obtained by non-citizens, including an Ohio driver‘s license or state ID card.
While state licenses and ID cards note on them if they were issued to a noncitizen, LaRose’s office clarified this week (following criticism from liberal and voting-rights groups) that “noncitizen”-marked licenses and IDs can still be used by newly naturalized citizens without needing to first get an updated ID — so long, of course, as they offer additional proof of citizenship.
Wednesday’s court filing, filed by the ACLU of Ohio on behalf of several of the plaintiffs in the 2006 lawsuit, asks the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio to block LaRose’s office from enforcing any requirement for suspected non-citizens to show documented proof of citizenship to vote if the photo ID they present isn’t considered proof enough.
“Requiring naturalized citizens to bring additional documentation to verify their eligibility to vote is not only burdensome and discriminatory, it’s unlawful,” said Freda Levenson, legal director of the ACLU of Ohio, in a statement. “After nearly 20 years of compliance with the federal injunction, Secretary LaRose suddenly decided to defy the injunction and impose an 11th-hour requirement forcing naturalized citizens to produce these papers.”
Lusheck said the secretary of state’s office is working with Attorney General Dave Yost’s office to respond to the litigation.
“We have a duty to uphold Ohio’s Constitution, which says only American citizens can participate in our elections. We’re not only prepared to enforce the law but also to protect the constitutional rights of Ohio citizens,” Lusheck said in a statement.
Lusheck said county boards of election were notified and provided with the updated form, “as they are the ones who will use it in cases where a challenge is warranted.”
He also said no new directive was needed, as LaRose‘s office only made the change for the reason that it wanted to provide “additional guidance” in the “specific circumstance where someone has a noncitizen ID but is also able to provide proof of citizenship.”
As for the lack of a news release, Lusheck stated, “We do not put out a press advisory every time we update a form.”
In Ohio, 15,867 people became naturalized citizens between October 2021 and September 2022, according to the most recent statistics made available by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
LaRose, a Columbus-area Republican, has touted his office’s work to stop non-citizens from voting in Ohio. His efforts have come amid rising fears among many Republicans about undocumented immigrants illegally casting ballots to help Democrats, as well as more general concerns about election security and immigration.
However, several checks conducted by LaRose’s office since 2019 have only turned up about 600 suspected cases of voting by non-citizens, out of about 8 million registered voters in the state. Few of those have resulted in criminal charges, as prosecuting attorneys say the cases are weak.
As the ACLU’s filing noted, six people were indicted this week for illegal voting on charges brought by Yost, but one had been dead for two years.
Jeremy Pelzer covers state politics and policy for Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.