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Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted unveiled results of an investigation into potential voter fraud from the November 2012 election. The work, by Ohio's 88 county boards of election and the secretary of state's staff, led to 135 cases referred for prosecution.

(Associated Press file)

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Secretary of State Jon Husted said today that while an investigation did find some cases of voter fraud from last November’s election, it is not a widespread problem across Ohio.

In January, Husted directed the 88 county boards of election to investigate all claims of voter fraud. The county boards and Husted's staff found 625 cases of irregularity.

Of those cases, names of 115 people were referred by the county boards of elections to their local prosecutors.

Husted’s staff referred another 20 cases to the Ohio attorney general for possible prosecution. They involve people who appear to have voted in two states during the presidential election.

“No amount of fraud is acceptable. And if you cheat, you will be caught and you will be held accountable,” Husted said.

Husted directed that the county boards investigate claims of election misconduct as a result of political hyperbole about voter suppression and voter fraud before the election.

“In the aftermath of an election, time after time, things calm down. These things go away and no one revisits them until the next major election. What I wanted to do was get the facts,” he said.

“Frankly, it concerns me with some of the hyperbole surrounding these issues that some of those unsubstantiated claims, left unchecked, would become conventional wisdom.”

Data collected by Husted staff and the county boards showed that while some examples of potential voter fraud were, they represent a miniscule part of the voting totals.

“Voter fraud does exist, but it is not an epidemic,” Husted said. “To put this into context, ... that’s 135 referrals out of more than 5.6 million votes cast.”

Husted said there did not appear to be any particular trend with the 135 cases. In some cases, people trying to cast ballots using the names of deceased voters.

But most involved efforts to double vote, Husted said. Of those, some involved voting in two precincts while others involved requesting absentee ballots and then attempting to vote in person on election day.

Since most of the cases involved casting one or more provisional ballots, it is known that the vast majority were unsuccessful at having multiple ballots counted, he said, which shows that the safeguards in the voting system worked.