To the Editor:
The Ohio Legislature after much expenditure of time and resources has sent a bill to the governor to protect the integrity of our elections in Ohio. I contacted the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office to inquire as to how much we spend on investigating voter fraud, the number of cases and convictions for voter fraud in Ohio.
They could not determine what is spent on investigation of fraud because there is no separate budget and those involved have other duties making it impossible to determine what is spent.
In the past four years, 630 cases of possible fraud have been passed on to prosecutors of the governmental units in which the potential fraud was reported. Some of these are out-of-state referrals.
As to the number of convictions for voter fraud, they have no idea as to the number of convictions because there is no mechanism for reporting convictions back to the secretary of state. There may be none or a maximum of 630 — in over 10 million votes.
Over 10 million votes were cast in Ohio during the past two general elections alone. Primary and special elections would add millions of votes to the total.
We are making vast changes in Ohio to protect elections from less than a 63 chance in a million that there is a case of fraud. That would be if all the cases were convictions. There has been no evidence of widespread fraud presented. It is such a small possibility that no one even keeps track of the number of actual cases proven.
It begs the question, “Why do we need to be protected from fraud by the action of legislators, when the elections are run by the same party wanting to protect us telling us there is no fraud to be protected from?”
Russell Griggs
Swanton
