House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan has given the Department of Justice (DOJ) a hard deadline to provide documentation on what he claims is an attempt to hamper Ohio's efforts to clamp down on noncitizen voting.
In a letter addressed at Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, Jordan said that warnings from the DOJ about Ohio's efforts potentially violating federal law are threats and called them "baseless, contrary to established law, and a clear effort to interfere in Ohio's electoral process."
It was making reference to an initiative spearheaded by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who has put the issue at the forefront of the state agenda as the elections get close. In August, LaRose said authorities found 597 noncitizens who voted or registered in recent elections. It was a higher figure than the 148 cases referred in 2022 and 117 in 2021, but a small fraction considering the state has 8 million registered voters.
Jordan's letter, however, argues that the federal government is blocking that effort. It goes on to say that the federal government has measures in place to prevent noncitizen voting, but clarifies that the "Constitution empowers states to serve as the primary administrators of elections" and that the Supreme Court has "recognized that states have broad authority to 'enact reasonable regulations of parties, elections, and ballots to reduce election-and campaign-related disorder.'"
"Rather than work with Secretary LaRose to improve election integrity in Ohio, the Biden-Harris Administration has done the opposite. First, the Department of Homeland Security has refused, on four separate occasions, to provide Ohio with access to federal citizenship verification records, as required by federal law, to prevent noncitizens from voting. Now, the Department is attempting to intimidate Secretary LaRose by alleging that his election integrity efforts violate the NVRA's prohibition on voter roll maintenance less than 90 days before a federal election," reads another passage of the letter, citing the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.
Jordan also claims that the DOJ and Clarke have "weaponized" their authority to "target Republican-led states for policy disagreements while ignoring violations of Americans' constitutional rights in Democrat-led states." That, along with what Jordan claims is the "Department's decision to insert itself into Ohio and other states' lawful efforts to ensure the integrity of its voter rolls in advance of the November 5, 2024, election, raises concerns about election interference."
For that reason it gives the official until October 31 to produce a series of related documents, including "documents and communications referring or relating to the Ohio Secretary of State's efforts to verify the citizenship status of registered Ohio voters" between May and the present.
Republicans across the country have claimed that Democrats are spearheading an initiative to get millions of undocumented immigrants to vote in the elections. Former President Donald Trump and mogul Elon Musk have echoed the claims, describing them as a massive danger to the integrity of the electoral process.
Republican authorities have led efforts to reduce voter rolls, an example being Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Over the past few weeks, Paxton has sued Latino-heavy counties over plans to register voters via mail saying they "indiscriminately [invite] county residents to register to vote regardless of their eligibility."
Republicans in North Carolina have also filed a lawsuit alleging noncitizens were registered to vote in the state, leading the Board of Elections shared it has removed nearly 750,000 registered voters.
Studies have found no evidence to substantiate claims of widespread election fraud, and scholars argue that these concerns are not supported by data. The Brennan Center for Justice, for example, researched claims of illegal voting from politicians during the 2012, 2016 and 2020 elections and found that most allegations of fraud were baseless or due to clerical errors and other forms of election misconduct.
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