Getty Images stock photo of a voter registration form.
The women’s political organization Red Wine and Blue has sued Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose over changes to the voter registration process at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
Thanks to the federal “motor voter” law, car registration agencies around the U.S. have offered voter registration services to applicants since the early 1990s. New state law in Ohio requires applicants provide proof of citizenship before the bureau registers them or updates their registration.
Red Wine and Blue argued the change, passed as part of Ohio’s two-year transportation budget, “makes it harder for lawful, eligible Ohio citizens to exercise their fundamental right to vote.”
“Frank LaRose and Republicans in the state legislature should not be able to disenfranchise anyone,” she continued. “Especially not the rural Ohioans, elderly voters, students, and women who have changed their legal names through marriage and divorce who are disproportionately affected by this legislation.”
In a press release LaRose dismissed the case as a “baseless” and “activist” lawsuit. He added the state of Wyoming instituted similar changes and courts there have already upheld the policy.
“It’s common sense that only U.S. citizens should be on our voter rolls,” LaRose said. “I won’t apologize for, or back down from the work we do to ensure the integrity of our voter rolls.”
“We will win this case,” he insisted, “just like we’ve fought off the other baseless actions that such groups have brought against us.”
At root, the changes shift the burden from state agencies to individuals.
Under prior law, registrants had to attest under penalty of perjury that they are a citizen. Verification then happened behind the scenes with elections officials at the state and local level.
On the one hand, drivers renewing their license who previously proved their citizenship shouldn’t have a problem. On the other, it’s not hard to imagine ordinary people showing up to the BMV without a marriage abstract or divorce paperwork; or a senior letting their license lapse and then losing the ability to renew without tracking down a birth certificate.
Researchers at the University of Maryland have found more than 21 million Americans — about 10% of the eligible voting population — don’t have ready access to proof of citizenship.
The complaint
The Red Wine and Blue complaint focuses on attestation requirements in prior law. A sworn state statement was good enough in Ohio for decades, and it’s the standard many other states and the federal government rely on, too.
“Indeed,” the complaint adds, “Ohio currently allows residents to register to vote based on an attestation of citizenship — so long as they register somewhere other than the BMV.”
The problem with imposing proof of citizenship requirements, the group claims, goes back to the motor voter law. That measure states registration agencies may only require the minimum amount of information necessary to determine a voter’s eligibility.
“Because the (National Voter Registration Act) separately requires that all applicants must attest, under penalty of perjury, that they are United States citizens,” the complaint states, “requesting any ‘proof’ of citizenship beyond that attestation goes beyond the ‘minimum’ amount of information that is ‘necessary’ to determine an applicant’s eligibility.”
In short, Red Wine and Blue contends that Congress said a sworn statement is fine and that states aren’t free to go further.
Attorneys for Red Wine and Blue warned the secretary about that point in a letter prior to filing their lawsuit.
In a response, LaRose’s general counsel, former Senate President Larry Obhof, dismissed them out of hand.
The U.S. and Ohio Constitutions bar noncitizens from voting, he wrote, and Ohio law bars them from registering.
“When a license registrant does not present proof of United States citizenship and has not done so in the past, Ohio does not have ‘the minimum amount of information necessary’ to assess whether the registrant is eligible to register to vote,” Obhof said.
The broader context
In recent years, right-wing organizers have grown increasingly insistent that noncitizens are flooding the American electoral system.
Republican officials including Donald Trump and JD Vance have fanned those flames, and in the final weeks of the 2024 election, Ohio boards of elections were flooded with thousands of bogus registration challenges.
LaRose himself has made a point of pursuing alleged voter fraud aggressively. Ahead of last year’s election, his maintenance efforts erroneously swept in naturalized citizens.
LaRose’s office has flagged hundreds of individual registrations for review since taking office.
As part of a 2023 investigation, Ohio Capital Journal spoke to dozens of county prosecutors about those cases. Many described a similar pattern: ineligible people received a form and filled it out thinking it was required. In some cases the applicants even checked a box stating they aren’t a citizen but county officials registered them anyway.
Those cases are about confusion rather than fraud, the prosecutors claimed. Ohio’s new proof of citizenship requirements might limit those cases, but Red Wine and Blue contends many more Ohioans will be harmed in the process.
And for all the fear mongering about noncitizen voting, no one has been able to show it’s a substantial problem.
Following a more thorough review of LaRose’s flagged cases in 2024, Attorney General Dave Yost turned up a grand total of six cases of voter fraud. The 2024 post-election audit came back with an accuracy rate north of 99% yet again.
Follow Ohio Capital Journal Reporter Nick Evans on X or on Bluesky.
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