Ohio's election commissioner's own numbers say fraud is extremely rare. He says it's a 'false narrative' • Ohio Capital Journal

As Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose's latest attempt to prosecute voter fraud last week showed once again that voter fraud is vanishingly rare in the Buckeye State, hundreds of case recommendations resulted in only a handful of charges, representing a tiny percentage of the millions Millions of votes were cast in Ohio's recent election in what he called a “false narrative” on social media.

He has made this accusation before. In February 2022, news organization The Hill published an article in which LaRose's office accurately reflected this possible Cases of electoral fraud 0.0005% of the votes cast Election 2020. LaRose used the social media site, then called Twitter, to accuse the media of spreading a false narrative — and to support former President Donald Trump's lies about that election: “There they are again” LaRose tweeted. “Mainstream media is trying to minimize voter fraud to fit their narrative.”

In one Follow-up tweetLaRose added: “President Trump is right when he says voter fraud is a serious problem. More will follow.”

Trump's claims of election fraud were rejected by 60 courtsFox News had to pay out $787 million about false stories about election fraud and Trump incited a mob to attack Congress on January 6, 2021 about false claims of a rigged election.

However, LaRose stayed true to his word and continued to beat the drum of election fraud.

“It is obvious to anyone paying attention that the integrity of Ohio’s elections is under attack!” He Posted on X Friday as he continues to demand citizenship documents from the federal government.

But over the past six years, LaRose has failed to make the case that any significant level of voter fraud is taking place in Ohio.

Frustrated that district attorneys didn't do more to investigate his office's ideas could These are cases of fraud, LaRose pointed out in September more than 600 to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. He made the referral after local prosecutors had processed only 12 of the 633 cases he referred to them.

On Tuesday, Yost announced the result: Only six charges after a Lorain County grand jury declined to indict an Oberlin College student. And one of the defendants turned out to be dead.

The charges relate to voting in elections dating back to 2008. Since then, more than 22 million Ohioans have cast their votes in presidential elections alone. 18 allegations of election fraud show that, despite LaRose's aggressive investigations, fraudulent votes rarely occur.

In announcing the charges, Yost said voter fraud is rare and he LaRose took to task about the quality of some of his recommendations.

“I need to have a conversation with the secretary of state about the value of the cases where there was no vote — I think we should focus on the vote,” Yost said.

But that didn't stop LaRose from claiming that there is actually a lot of voter fraud in Ohio.

“Also, watch out for this false narrative: 'It's only six out of millions!' There is no such thing as election fraud!'” LaRose said last Tuesday on the social media site that now goes by the name

The secretary of state did not respond to a question about how a “false narrative” could arise when it was literally true that Yost's work resulted in only six indictments out of tens of millions of votes cast.

Meanwhile, LaRose and his Republican allies in Capital Square have used the specter of widespread voter fraud to enact a series of measures that critics say disenfranchise people who tend to vote Democratic:

• A voter ID law passed last year that is estimated to have already gone into effect More than 8,000 people were excluded from voting.
• Strict restrictions at mailboxes where voters can drop off mail-in ballots. LaRose had already limited the number of such boxes to one per county – regardless of whether that is the case a million inhabitants and tends to vote blue, or just 13,000 and tends to vote red.
• Despite the extreme rarity of voter fraud, LaRose wants to do this too require proof of citizenship so people can register. He is now being sued about these actions. As with voter ID requirements, citizens who lack such documents typically belong to groups such as colored people who tend to vote for LaRose's political opponents.
• LaRose has also removed hundreds of thousands of voters from the voter rolls, including many because they did not vote regularly. Critics say there is no constitutional requirement that voters be consistent to be eligible to vote.

In addition to his claims of voter fraud, LaRose has done and said a number of other misleading things regarding elections and voting in Ohio.

For example, when he spearheaded an effort last year to make it significantly harder for voters to initiate changes to the state constitution, LaRose maintained that the effort had nothing to do with blocking an abortion rights amendment passed on Nov. 14 of last year or an anti-amendment -gerrymandering amendment, which is up for a vote next week. But then he told a group of Seneca County Republicans that the effort failed “100% on” blocking abortion rights amendment.

As Secretary of State, LaRose leads the Ohio Ballot Board. This company this year wrote a voting summary of the anti-gerrymandering amendment on the ballot next week that critics say is highly misleading.

Even if that includes Ohio's legislature and congressional delegation most manipulatedAccording to LaRose's vote summary, the proposed reforms would “establish a new, taxpayer-funded commission of appointees.” required to gerrymander the boundaries of the state’s legislative and congressional districts to favor the two largest political parties in the state of Ohio.”