Throughout 2024, Republican officials in Ohio and around the country raised alarms about potential voter fraud ahead of November’s election. But Election Day came and went without a hiccup and a post-election audit released late last month reiterated what many advocates have been saying all along — Ohio’s election system is extremely safe and accurate.
“Ohioans deserve to know that their elections are transparent, accessible, and accountable,” Secretary of State Frank LaRose said in a press release. “As 2024 comes to a close, I am proud to announce yet another 99.9% audit accuracy rate and am grateful for the hard work and dedication of Ohio’s bipartisan election officials who make it happen.”
LaRose went on to note that for the Presidential race in particular all 88 counties reported a 100% accuracy rate.
How it works
County boards have to audit three races — whatever is at the top of the ticket, another statewide race selected by the secretary and a local race selected by the county board. The review has to include at least 5% of the total votes cast in the county.
In addition to the presidential race, in the latest audit counties reviewed the U.S. Senate race and a range of local contests like county commissioner or prosecutor. The Senate race accuracy rate was 99.997% and local races came in at 99.998%.
Those figures align with the results officials have turned in following every election in recent memory. Secretary LaRose bragged that since taking office, he has required a post-election audit after every election and thanked state lawmakers for codifying that practice going forward.
Reality and rhetoric
Those strong audit results are a big reason why LaRose and other officials routinely describe Ohio as “the gold standard” for election integrity. But LaRose himself spent much of the past year fanning suspicions about election fraud.
In May, LaRose identified 137 potential noncitizens in the statewide voter registration database as part of an annual audit. Although his announcement acknowledged the registrations could be “the result of an honest mistake,” he took the opportunity to share his findings in conservative media as an example of his efforts to fight fraud and the recalcitrance of federal agencies for not giving him access to certain databases.
LaRose’s allegations got quoted as fact by U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson in lobbying for a bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote. A handful of state lawmakers in Ohio have recently floated the same idea.
As it happens, LaRose’s audit wound up sweeping in a handful of recently naturalized citizens. Some of them argued the secretary was taking shortcuts to include individuals who hadn’t met the specific statutory requirements for getting flagged.
Still, in the run up to last year’s election, those concerns resulted in some Ohio counties fielding thousands of voter registration challenges — sometimes over discrepancies as trivial as an extra space in their name.
Just two weeks before the election, Attorney General Dave Yost announced his office had investigated the hundreds of cases flagged by LaRose and turned up six cases of illegal voting. Yost grumbled about being asked to investigate several cases that amounted to simple registration errors, and it turned out one of the people they indicted was already dead. The other cases, meanwhile, read like honest misunderstandings rather than willful fraud.
In addition, LaRose got into a running battle over access to ballot drop boxes. After a federal court ruled that people with disabilities must be allowed to get assistance from a broader range of people than the list of close family laid out in state law, he instituted a new policy requiring those assisting others sign a form stating they’re doing so in compliance with state law. In the name of fighting “ballot harvesting” those changes took access to drop boxes off the table for anyone not dropping their own ballot — whether they were assisting someone with disabilities or one of the close family members specifically outlined in state law.
LaRose went to so far as to send a letter to state lawmakers encouraging them to scrap drop boxes altogether. A pair of state lawmakers have included that provision in a measure requiring proof of citizenship to vote.
Reactions
In response to the latest election audit, Ohio Association of Election Officials executive director Aaron Ockerman said, “Once again Ohio election officials have risen to the occasion and provided an efficient, trustworthy and fair election.”
“The post-election audits of the 2024 Presidential election confirm what we have known to be true for many years,” he added. “Ohioans can trust their election results.”
Jen Miller, who heads up the League of Women Voters of Ohio praised the work of election officials.
“We commend Ohio’s diligent elections officials for once again running secure, accurate elections,” she said. “They are public servants who deserve raises in Ohio’s next budget.”
Miller went on to underscore the implications of yet another sterling audit.
“The audit results prove that fraud is exceedingly rare in Ohio, and we caution Secretary LaRose and lawmakers against changing voting laws, which would likely decrease access without improving security at all.”
Follow OCJ Reporter Nick Evans on Twitter.
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