Secretary of State Directive 2025-23 DOES NOT Ensure Only US Citizens Vote in Ohio

In 2022, Ohio citizens voted to amend Ohio’s Constitution to allow only US citizens to vote in Ohio. Over two years later, no state legislation or Secretary of State directive has enforced this change.  

Directive 2025-23 does not address this, as noncitizens can still vote in Ohio.   

• The same flawed election system that lets noncitizens register to vote on the ‘honor’ system without verifying US citizenship is still in place.   

• The same flawed Ohio law that allows individuals to avoid noncitizen identification by registering with the last four digits of their social security number (SSN4) is still in place. In 2024, 60,000 voters registered this way, and 38,000 of them have mismatched registration information to Social Security records. Additionally, a million registered  this way since 2011.

• The same flawed Ohio law that only selects noncitizens who self-identify as noncitizens twice at the BMV is still in place.  There are over 240,000 noncitizens with BMV records. How many of them are not selected for noncitizen reviews because they presented noncitizens documents once instead of twice?  

• The same flawed Ohio law that allows noncitizens to register without proper ID (no driver’s license, state ID or SSN4) is still in place, even though federal law requires otherwise.  

• The same flawed Ohio law that keeps noncitizens on the voter rolls by responding to a notice from the Secretary of State to ‘confirm’ their citizenship with no verification is still in place.

• The same flawed Ohio justice system that allows noncitizens who register and vote without prosecution is still in place.

• This directive allows noncitizens to reregister after being removed,  creating a potential endless cycle of  registration without verification, removal and reregistration without verification.

How can Ohio ensure ONLY US citizens are permitted to vote? 

Continuing the current process of trying to identify noncitizens is futile and will not prevent noncitizens from registering and voting in Ohio elections. A person could be a noncitizen one day, and be a legitimate citizen the next. Instead, efforts should focus on verifying that applicants and existing registrants are US citizens. Once verified as a citizen, that person should not need to be verified again.

Instead of focusing on noncitizens, Ohio state law and Secretary of State directives should concentrate on enforcing the Ohio Constitution’s mandate, which states “Only a citizen of the United States . . . has the qualifications of an elector, and is entitled to vote at all elections.” 

To comply with the mandate set by Ohio’s citizens in 2022, state legislators must enact laws ensuring that only US citizens are permitted to register and vote.  This can be achieved by verifying that only US citizens are added to Ohio voter rolls and verifying that only US citizens are voting.