Ohio's Secretary of State John Husted has been forced to admit that there is no conspiracy or organization behind voter fraud in his state, now that a review of the 5.63 million total votes cast in 2012 showed that just 17 non-citizens voted. But, for Republicans, the
lack of voter fraud isn't any reason to stop trying to keep people from voting.
“This seems to be an act of individuals,” [Husted] said. “There does not seem to be any evidence of a concerted effort to register non-citizens.”
That raises the question of why Husted—not known as a friend of voting rights—held a press conference to tout the findings. Republicans in a number of states have seized on non-citizen voting to justify restrictive voting measures.
The findings were released as Ohio Republicans plot a slew of bills that would make voting harder in the Buckeye State, especially for minorities and the poor. Bills that would cut early voting and end same-day registration are likely to pass next month, and voter ID legislation is said to be under consideration. Last week, lawmakers passed a measure that makes it easier for Husted to remove voters from the rolls, and the measure could lead to longer lines at the polls.
Matthew McClellan, a spokesman for Husted, told msnbc the goal was to avoid the issue being mischaracterized.
McClellan went on to say that Husted had to get this information out immediately because otherwise "others will try to fill that area and may not present the facts as accurately as they should be." In other words, get ahead of the bad news and hopefully preempt your opponents from using it against you. It also gives Husted the appearance of being more or less a neutral actor. If he's willingly offering information that undercuts his own voter suppression efforts, then he must be working in good faith on voter suppression. But it by no means says that he's going to give up the effort to keep as many people out of the polls as possible.