COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Despite concerns by some Ohio lawmakers about voter fraud, most of the voting irregularities that elections officials reported during the 2012 general election did not result in criminal charges, the Northeast Ohio Media Group has found.

Prosecutors in counties large and small told the media outlet their investigations typically concluded that the irregularities resulted from confusion by voters or mistakes by elections officials rather than from people trying to game the system.

And while Republican lawmakers have introduced bills aimed at curbing voter fraud, some Republican prosecutors joined their Democratic counterparts in reporting no evidence of a widespread problem.

“Basically I found that there wasn't an overwhelming pattern of voter fraud,” said Butler County Prosecutor Michael T. Gmoser, a Republican in a Republican-dominated county. “There’s a couple of isolated incidents of people making bone-headed decisions.”

Northeast Ohio Media Group looked at the eight counties that each generated at least 10 reports of voting irregularities during the 2012 election. The prosecutors in those counties - Butler, Cuyahoga, Delaware, Erie, Fairfield, Franklin, Hamilton and Medina - collectively reviewed 210 of the 270 cases reported statewide. Here is what they reported:

Butler County looked at 11 cases, and Gmoser, the prosecutor, pressed charges against one man who voted in the county and in another state. The man told investigators he only voted for issues on his absentee ballot from Butler County. He voted for president in the other state. Gmoser said he felt a duty to prosecute because the man knew what he was doing. The man pleaded to a reduced charge.

Cuyahoga County chose not to pursue criminal charges in any of the 15 cases referred to the prosecutor's office. Most of the cases involved confusion about the so-called Golden Week, the one week during early absentee voting when a person can both register to vote and also cast their absentee ballot.

Some mail sent to potential voters to confirm their registrations was returned as undeliverable, said Joseph Frolik, communications director for Democratic Prosecutor Timothy J McGinty. But the problems with delivery didn’t appear to be a result at someone trying to fraudulently register. On some, it appeared the person had simply moved. None were determined to have criminal intent needed as a basis for prosecution, he said.

Delaware County investigated 13 voting cases, and filed no charges. But Republican Prosecutor Carol O'Brien's staff did charge a man with falsifying names on an election petition he circulated.

Erie County chose not to prosecute any of the 10 referred to Democratic Prosecutor Kevin Baxter's office. "None rose to a level of criminal intent. It was more confusion on the part of the voter," said Jason Hinners, an assistant county prosecutor. A number of them involved seniors in residence homes.

Franklin County investigated 92 referrals, 90 from its elections board and two more from Husted's office. In an e-mail, Prosecutor Ron O'Brien, a Republican, said 16 cases likely will be prosecuted after some further investigation. Those cases generally involve people who tried to vote twice. Two people are suspected of voting in Ohio and in Arkansas.

Another 40-plus cases require more investigation. Some of those, he said, will be weeded out and dropped. Others could be prosecuted, depending on what is found during additional interviews.

But more than 30 were dropped.

In several cases it appeared there was a technical violation of law, but the status of the offender made it an inappropriate case to prosecute, O’Brien said. Such was the case with “a number of elderly voters who had apparent memory issues, and while they had voted twice or attempted to vote twice, a criminal prosecution was not deemed proper.”

Hamilton County investigated 48 cases, but upon review, most were deemed inappropriate for prosecution, said Julie Wilson, Republican Prosecutor Joe Deters' chief assistant prosecutor. Six cases were pursued.



The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Deters' office won a conviction against a woman for voting five times, twice under her own name and three times for her sister, who has been in a coma since 2003. The newspaper also reported that Deters also won voter-fraud convictions against three others. Cases against two others are pending.

Medina County investigated 10 cases. None led to prosecution.

Prosecutor Dean Holman, a Democrat in a Republican leaning county, recalled that in one case a woman requested, completed and returned an absentee ballot. Then, forgetting she had requested the first, she asked for another. Then she showed up at the polls on election day. Investigators concluded that the woman, who was elderly and dealing with the recent loss of her husband, did not intend to commit a crime.

“Some of these people were just confused,' Holman said. "Those people should not be prosecuted. The criminal justice system is designed for criminal conduct.”

An additional 20 cases were referred to Attorney General Mike DeWine by Husted’s staff. One led to a guilty plea for falsification. Five others were dropped.

The rest required further investigation, mostly by county prosecutors, and some of those were, including two sent to Cuyahoga, were subsequently dropped.

The investigations came at the request of Secretary of State Jon Husted, who last year directed all 88 county boards of elections in Ohio to investigate all claims of voter fraud from the 2012 election.

Husted’s staff and the county boards identified 625 cases. At the time Husted released his initial report, 135 had been forwarded to prosecutors. Eventually, another 135 were also forwarded, bringing the total to 270. Those cases represented less than five one-thousandths of 1 percent of the 5.6 million ballots cast in Ohio in the 2012 election.

Husted said he ordered the review because he became concerned over the tone of the rhetoric about voter fraud.

"Frankly, it concerns me with some of the hyperbole surrounding these issues that some of those unsubstantiated claims, left unchecked, would become conventional wisdom," he said when he released his initial findings in May. While cases of voter fraud do occur, he said, "it is not an epidemic." He repeated that recently when he announced his staff had identified 17 cases where non-citizens appeared to have registered and voted in the presidential election and another 274 non-citizens who were registered also had been identified.

“It [voter fraud] exists," he said, "it’s rare."

The low numbers suggest safeguards in the system are effective, he added.

“I believe that the system in place does work very well and we work every day to make it better,” Husted said. “Our constant mantra is ‘Make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.’ “

Elections officials, while conceding voter fraud is not a serious problem in Ohio, say it remains one to be watched.

Most counties reported some sort of voting infractions during the 2012 general elections, albeit generally small-scale issues, said Karla Herron, the director of the Delaware County Board of Elections and president of the Ohio Association of Election Officials.

“It seemed that most counties had something, but not anything huge,” she said. “We do not believe [fraud] is a systemic problem, but we do want it to be where there’s no room for that."