Ohio Secretary of State (SOS)
1. Blocked citizen’s petition to place issue of deleting machines on ballot
When electronic voting machines in Ohio were first purchased in 2004 as a result of the passing of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), the federal government subsidized the purchase with the stipulation that the adoption of these machines were not mandatory, but could be adopted by the Board of Elections (BOE), the County Commissioners on recommendation by the BOE, or by the voters themselves as stipulated by Ohio Law (R.C.3506.02 (C)). For the voters, a petition form (Form 6D currently located on the SoS website at https://www.ohiosos.gov/assets/6-d.pdf) was drafted. However, this form has never been used to adopt voting machines. Instead, the BOEs in each of Ohio’s 88 counties unilaterally agreed to adopt the machines with no voter input.
To give the voters a voice on the matter of either keeping voting machines or rejecting them in favor of hand-counted paper ballots, CCVO led efforts in Seneca and Monroe counties in early 2025 to circulate a petition to put the question on the ballot. In August 2025, the Secretary issued an advisory to all BOEs (Advisory 2025-04) that stated that since Form 6D was solely intended for the adoption of voting machines (which by the way had already been adopted), the use of Form 6D to abandon the machines was not authorized by Ohio law.
2. Denied small rural county request to hand-count ballots to check machines
Shortly after the 2024 Presidential election results were certified, a group of concerned voters in Monroe County requested their Board of Elections (BOE) to allow them to hand-count the 6,900 ballots cast during the election at no cost to the county to verify the results of the machines. The request was forwarded to the Secretary of State’s office and was subsequently denied. This raises the question “if the machines are so accurate, why wouldn’t the Secretary welcome the opportunity to prove the claim?”
The following is the appeal sent to the Secretary signed by concerned registered voters of Monroe County:
Citizens Appeal to Ohio Secretary of State to Allow Monroe County Board of Elections to Hand Count Ballots in Monroe County Elections
To: Honorable Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose
CC: Board of Elections of Monroe County From: Registered Voters of Monroe County
We, the undersigned registered voters of the County of Monroe, State of Ohio, respectfully request that the Monroe County Board of Elections (BOE) be allowed to adopt hand-marked and hand-counted ballots for all elections beginning in November 2025.
Not only have we lost trust in the security of current voting machines, but we have determined in a recent feasibility study (see attached) that hand-counting ballots is a much cheaper alternative than using machines. This petition accompanies a letter that has been sent to Secretary of State, Frank LaRose requesting him to authorize interested county BOEs to adopt hand-counted ballots as an alternative to electronic voting machines.
Our Concerns:
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Voting machines have inherent security vulnerabilities and forensic examinations by cybersecurity experts have documented evidence of vote manipulation.
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The Source Code is proprietary (secret) and not tested for malware.
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The Secretary of State has refused citizen’s requests to have Ohio’s voting machines examined by independent cybersecurity experts
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Although the Ohio Secretary of State claims that our voting machines do not contain wireless modems that would allow connectivity to external networks, he refuses to provide documented proof.
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A recent feasibility study for Monroe County (see attached) shows that hand-counting ballots is a significantly cheaper alternative and can be done without an increase in manpower.
3. Refused to release documents to prove Ohio’ voting machines do not contain modems
Given the underwhelming response from the December 2023 letter, CCVO reached out to the Secretary of State's (SOS) office. At a LaRose campaign stop in March 2024, CCVO personally spoke with the Secretary about the CISA advisory and the Dominion Voting Systems findings in other states like Georgia. He responded that the Georgia Dominion machines were a different configuration from what we have in Ohio. LaRose then provided a contact for us, which was Brian Katz, the SOS Public Integrity Division Director.
Our correspondence with Mr.Katz was cordial and although he responded to our inquiries, he often evaded answering our direct questions, instead giving stock talking points that emphasized how safe the machines are in Ohio and why we can trust them. When pressed about providing CCVO proof that no machine in Ohio contained wireless modems, he was unable to provide a copy of the report from the Voting System Testing Laboratory (VSTL) that supposedly performed the testing and instead told us to contact the VSTL directly.
The VSTL, however, told us that they could not provide a copy of the report since the vendor (Dominion) owned it since they paid for it and then sent us back to Katz for a copy. In his last email to CCVO dated July 11, 2024,Katz said that he would forward our request to the SOS Public Records Request office. CCVO then retained a Lawyer to communicate with the legal Department at the SOS office. Our Lawyer was also denied access to the results of the modem test we were requesting. After two years of efforts we then filed a Lawsuit to the Ohio Supreme Court to weigh in on the request.
4. Refused to forensically examine voting machines for known security flaws
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More information to come.