Ohio removes 75 noncitizen voter registrations in latest citizenship review
Secretary of State Frank LaRose (Photo by Todd DeFeo)
Ohio election officials removed another 75 noncitizen voter registrations from the state’s voter rolls as part of an ongoing citizenship verification program, Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced.
The latest removals are part of a process that uses state and federal records to identify registrations belonging to people who are not U.S. citizens.
“American elections are only for American citizens,” LaRose, who is running for state auditor in November, said in a release. “Ohio continues to lead the nation by using every tool available to enforce that constitutional requirement.”
LaRose’s office said Ohio now continuously reviews voter registration records using information from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, Social Security Administration and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, commonly known as SAVE.
The process previously operated as an annual review before LaRose directed county boards of elections in 2025 to conduct ongoing reviews of potentially ineligible noncitizen registrations. Under that directive, registrations can be removed when a person has identified themselves as a noncitizen to the BMV, failed to respond to notices seeking confirmation of citizenship and has been verified as a noncitizen through SAVE.
LaRose’s office said it investigates flagged records individually and manually reviews federal SAVE records before making a final determination. The office’s Public Integrity Division also reviews the information before removal.
Eligible voters whose registrations are canceled may challenge the decision by providing proof of citizenship. If a cancellation is determined to have been made in error, the voter’s registration is restored as though it had never been canceled, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
Ohio has increasingly relied on SAVE for citizenship verification.
LaRose announced in July that a federal court ordered the Department of Homeland Security to restore Ohio’s access to SAVE’s bulk-upload and Social Security number search functions under a settlement agreement with the state.
Ohio previously secured a 20-year agreement with the Department of Homeland Security governing access to the system.
The latest removals also come amid a separate legal dispute over Ohio’s voter registration procedures at Bureau of Motor Vehicles offices.
As Ohio.News previously reported, a federal judge in August temporarily blocked an Ohio requirement that people registering to vote through the BMV provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship.
U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver found that the requirement likely conflicts with the federal National Voter Registration Act because it requires people registering through the BMV to provide documentary proof of citizenship that other registration methods do not require.
LaRose said the latest 75 removals show why continued access to federal citizenship records matters to the state’s voter-list maintenance efforts.
“With improved access to federal citizenship data, we continue to identify ineligible registrations more efficiently while maintaining safeguards to protect eligible Ohio voters,” LaRose said.
