Dead man's voter fraud charges spark local county feud with AG's office

COLUMBUS, Ohio — After Ohio’s attorney general charged a dead man with voter fraud, Cuyahoga County officials accused him of playing politics ahead of the election. We have obtained documents that demonstrate the beginning of a communications breakdown.

It’s been quite a week for Attorney General Dave Yost.

“We’re talking today about non-citizen voting,” Yost said during a press conference on Tuesday.

During his event, the AG boasted six counts of voter fraud in previous elections. Each of them is a green card holder who reportedly voted in previous elections.

Three were from Northeast Ohio and the remaining three were from the Columbus area. They were all lawful permanent residents – or green card holders.

This investigation dates back to the summer when Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose complained to Yost that local prosecutors did not follow up on his team’s possible references to election fraud.

Of the six people charged, one was a 68-year-old man from North Royalton who allegedly voted in 2014, 2016 and 2018.

“You will be held accountable in the state of Ohio,” Yost said.

Even if you’re dead?

It turns out that voter died two years ago. Still, Yost attacked him.

“This is one of the greatest examples of prosecutorial overreach I have ever seen,” Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley said in a statement breaking news on Wednesday. “The practice of charging the deceased is draconian.”

O’Malley says he is “philosophically opposed to charging deceased persons who clearly have no means of defending themselves.”

The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office is blasting the attorney general for filing voter fraud charges against the dead man

“This is not how we would have handled this case in my office,” O’Malley said. “I call on Ohio Attorney General David Yost to immediately dismiss this charge.”

As soon as Yost’s team learned of the death, they told us they would “of course” drop the charges. On Friday we asked LaRose how this could happen.

“Well, you know, really, that’s a question for the attorney general, because why did it take so long for him not to prosecute this case and we had to refer the case to the attorney general?” LaRose replied.

Cuyahoga County continues to steadfastly deny that there is a referral for this case, but we have obtained some records from the AG’s office.

In a log entry dated March 25, 2020, a Bureau of Criminal Investigation special agent wrote that he had sent the “completed investigative reports” related to the alleged voter to the former assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor for review.

“No additional investigative efforts are necessary at this time,” the officer wrote.

The case is marked as ‘closed’ at the top of the log.

I reached out to Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office spokesperson Lexi Bauer. The team was not available for an interview, but they gave us insight when contacted throughout the week.

“We have searched our case management system and we have no record of the case,” Bauer texted me.

In an earlier text, she told me that they “couldn’t say why theirs was closed.”

She added that their APA left the office in early 2023.

“We have prosecuted multiple voter fraud cases referred to us by the Ohio Attorney General’s office, including one this week,” she said. “We work with the Ohio Attorney General’s office on a daily basis. If there was an issue in this case, it was never brought to the attention of our office.”

I asked the AG’s office for documentation showing that there was direct communication between their office and Cuyahoga County, or for a letter from the county declining to prosecute. Their spokesperson told me they are working on my multitude of requests.

However, Bauer raised a point that several other officials from other provinces raised: the timing is “suspicious.”

“We can only speculate as to why this issue arose two weeks before Election Day, but it appears to be politically motivated,” Bauer said. “A fair prosecution of this case would have included an investigation that would have quickly revealed that (the individual) died two years ago. It is clear that this investigation was not completed before it was presented to the grand jury.”

Atiba Ellis, a nonpartisan election law professor at Case Western Reserve University, was stunned by the indictment’s revelation. He also questioned the timing and oversight of both Yost and LaRose.

“This seems more focused on trying to provide evidence where evidence is scarce,” Ellis added. “At the very least, charging a dead person would raise suspicion that the attorney general’s office or the secretary of state did not conduct due diligence to bring proper charges.”

One thing that stood out in conversations with various agencies and election boards is that every county the Republican AG and Secretary looked at has Democratic prosecutors.

Of the living people (as far as we know) charged, two were from Northeast Ohio. One was a 78-year-old woman from Hudson in Summit County who reportedly voted in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. The other was a 32-year-old man from Kent in Portage County who reportedly voted in 2016 and 2018.

The three others were located in the Columbus area. A 35-year-old man would have voted in 2008 and 2020; a 53-year-old woman reportedly voted in 2016 and 2020; and a 62-year-old woman reportedly voted in 2016 and 2018.

The Summit County indictment is listed as “secret,” meaning it is confidential.

“Under the Ohio Revised Code, it is inappropriate for anyone to comment on a secret charge until the suspect is in custody or in court,” said James Pollack, spokesman for the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office.

It’s unclear how Yost was able to break the news about this on Tuesday before the person was in custody or in court.

The Portage County Prosecutor’s Office never responded to repeated requests.

The Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office, which has communications handled by an outside public relations firm, said the cases had indeed been referred.

“The agency has reviewed the cases and decided not to proceed with prosecution,” the PR team said.

I asked their spokesperson why they did not prosecute.

“Right now they don’t want to share those reasons,” was the answer I got back.

Overall, Yost emphasized that six possible fraudulent voters out of 8 million registered voters is a minuscule number — and proves that Ohio does not have widespread voter fraud.

“These types of voting irregularities are rare… We must all have confidence in the coming elections that the laws will be enforced, and that they will be enforced in the future,” the AG said.

To follow WEWS statehouse reporter Morgan Trau Tweet And Facebook.