LaRose launches multi-state election integrity network to battle election fraud
In this June 2025 photo, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose certifies the official results of the 2025 Primary and Special Election, marking the completion of the statewide canvass by Ohio’s 88 county boards of elections and formally affirming the winners. (Courtesy Ohio Secretary of State's Office)
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced on Monday that Ohio and many other states have implemented a new election-integrity network, EleXa, that would allow them to identify illegal voting activity by exchanging election records.
“Election integrity will always be our top priority, and that starts with our duty under the law to maintain accurate voter rolls,” LaRose said in a press release. “These data-sharing agreements allow Ohio to work with our colleagues in other states to identify people who try to vote illegally, often by having more than one active voter registration and then casting multiple ballots in the same election.”
Ohio will cooperate with the secretaries of state in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
The agreements currently being finalized will allow the Buckeye State to remove out-of-state voters, thereby preventing multi-state voting.
Ohio law would authorize LaRose to join “with other states or groups of states, as the secretary of state considers necessary, in order to maintain the statewide voter registration database.”
LaRose would also be required by this law to ensure that confidential voter information “remains confidential,” and the agreements mandate that any exchanged data would be protected as much as possible.
“Ohio has the most aggressive and effective voter list maintenance process in the nation, in part, because of the work we’ve done to enhance these data-sharing partnerships,” LaRose said. “I look forward to expanding EleXa to include other states and continuing to build on our partnership with the federal government to prioritize election integrity in our state.”
This wasn’t the first time LaRose tried to use technology to ensure the security of Ohio elections.
LaRose announced last month that his office had trained and deployed Ohio’s first AI-powered election administration assistant, Eva, short for Elections Virtual Assistant, which would provide immediate assistance to election officials in all 88 counties.
“She’s definitely a data nerd and a bit on the wonky side, but I’m not sure I’ve met someone who can answer a common question about election administration as quickly and effectively as Eva,” he said.
LaRose added that Eva is a “game-changer for our election officials,” since they don’t need to “manually search a 524-page rulebook to find basic instructions on everything from managing the voter registration database to conducting a post-election audit.”
“Eva can provide those answers immediately with a simple search prompt,” he said.
Eva’s database would get information only from official sources, such as the Ohio Election Official Manual and the annual election calendar.”
“This will be an incredible resource for election officials across Ohio,” Seneca County Board of Elections Director Lori Elchert said. “Election work is fast-paced and detail-driven, and having a tool that can instantly pull accurate information from official sources will make our jobs more efficient and allow us to better serve voters.”
LaRose also announced an update to his office’s interactive Find My District tool that would allegedly help Ohioans by providing an easy way to identify their current and newly established congressional districts, where candidates will run in 2026.
