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Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose sued President Biden's administration on Thursday, accusing officials of "obstruction and outright abuse of power."
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Southern District of Ohio, says the Department of Homeland Security refused on multiple occasions to grant access to federal records that are "necessary to prevent non-citizens from voting." LaRose's office has conducted a rolling audit of the state's voter rolls ahead of Election Day, and he has previously told Fox News Digital that state-level records can only take the process so far.
"I swore an oath to uphold our state constitution, and that document clearly requires that only United States citizens can participate in Ohio elections," LaRose said in a statement. "The Biden-Harris Administration is engaging in obstruction and outright abuse of power to prevent us from removing non-citizens from our voter rolls. I take my duty seriously, so if they want a fight over the integrity of our elections, they’ve got it."
The lawsuit claims there were four instances in which Ohio's requests for access to federal records were denied. Ohio's audit relies on analysis and cross-checks against records provided by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the DHS Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, the Social Security Administration, federal jury pool data and other resources.
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While LaRose's office can access the SAVE database, states using it have to pay $1.50 for each query for records, and finding the information required to properly search the data is cumbersome, LaRose says.
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The data the Biden administration is refusing to share would provide a more comprehensive picture of how many non-citizens remain registered to vote in Ohio, LaRose says.
"While the administration is blocking access to these records, the Department of Justice is suing or threatening to sue multiple states, including Ohio, who are trying to enforce their citizenship voting requirements," LaRose added. "It’s hardly a coincidence. The same administration that’s presided over the most reckless, porous immigration policy in our country’s history is also intentionally blocking states from protecting the integrity of their elections."
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In August, LaRose's office referred 138 non-citizen registered voters to the state's attorney general. That group came as part of 597 non-citizen voters who were removed from the state's rolls.
LaRose's audit has also purged roughly 155,000 voter registrations that were confirmed to be abandoned and inactive for at least four consecutive years.
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