Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has announced the creation of a new, multi-state election integrity network known as EleXa, a national coalition formed to exchange election records for use in identifying illegal voting activity.
“Ohio has signed voter list sharing agreements with secretaries of state in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia, and Pennsylvania is finalizing an agreement,” said Secretary LaRose.
“Election integrity will always be our top priority, and that starts with our duty under the law to maintain accurate voter rolls. These data-sharing agreements allow Ohio to work with our colleagues in other states to identify people who try to vote illegally, often by having more than one active voter registration and then casting multiple ballots in the same election.”
The name of the project, EleXa, is a nod to “election administration,” with a symbolic ‘X’ representing the removal of illegal or ineligible voters identified through formal cross-state election data sharing agreements.
The agreements will enable Ohio to maintain more accurate voter rolls by removing out-of-state voters and better prevent and detect multi-state voting. State law authorizes Secretary LaRose to join “with other states or groups of states, as the secretary of state considers necessary, in order to maintain the statewide voter registration database.”
The law also requires the Secretary to ensure that confidential voter information “remains confidential,” and the agreements mandate that any exchanged data be protected by the most advanced security protocols.
“Ohio has the most aggressive and effective voter list maintenance process in the nation, in part, because of the work we’ve done to enhance these data-sharing partnerships,” said Secretary LaRose.
“I look forward to expanding EleXa to include other states and continuing to build on our partnership with the federal government to prioritize election integrity in our state.”
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