STORY UPDATED: check for updates below.

Citizens Only

Can non-U.S. citizens use a driver's license to vote in U.S. elections as an X post suggested Haitian immigrants in Springfield are doing? No, that's not true: Only U.S. citizens who are older than 18 and have registered to vote can vote in the presidential election, according to the Ohio Laws and Administrative Rules website and the U.S. government website. Searching USA.gov and Ohio's Laws and Administrative Rules for regulations that would allow "non-citizen voting" did not turn up anything. Lead Stories found no actual reports of Haitian immigrants illegally using driver's licenses to vote.

The claim appeared in a post and video on X (archived here) on September 18, 2024. The caption read:

I was almost thrown out of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles BMV in Springfield, OH

Police called out on me for recording illegal aliens from Haiti getting drivers license and commercial drivers license.

Will these millions of illegals use their NEW DRIVERS LICENSE TO VOTE??

Comment below. @LFATVUS

This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:

(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed Oct 2 13:08:59 2024 UTC)

The video with the post is of Hernando Arce, a "citizen journalist" from San Antonio, Texas, according to his X bio, recording Springfield, Ohio, Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) employees and customers. For the first half of the 8-minute, 30-second video, the BMV employees and Arce argue about whether he is allowed to record in the building. In the second half, Arce speaks only to Black customers coming in the building, films his surroundings, and adds commentary. At one point in the video, Arce identifies a couple as being Haitian immigrants, but does not provide any proof to support that claim.

The claim that "illegal aliens" can vote with just a driver's license is not true. Ohio's Laws and Administrative Rules states:

Only a citizen of the United States, of the age of eighteen years, who has been a resident of the state, county, township, or ward, such time as may be provided by law, and has been registered to vote for thirty days, has the qualifications of an elector, and is entitled to vote at all elections. No person who lacks those qualifications shall be permitted to vote at any state or local election held in this state.

USA.gov has the same qualifications on their website:

You can vote in U.S. federal, state, and local elections if you:

• Are a U.S. citizen ...

• Meet your state's residency requirements ...
• Are 18 years old on or before Election Day ...
• Are registered to vote by your state's voter registration deadline. North Dakota does not require voter registration.

Searching USA.gov and Ohio's Laws and Administrative Rules for "non-citizen voting" did not provide Lead Stories with any evidence that non-U.S. citizens can vote in U.S. elections. The USA.gov site, under a topic line titled "Who can and cannot vote," states: "Non-citizens, including permanent legal residents, cannot vote in federal, state, and most local elections."

Lead Stories reached out to Amber Lopez, deputy director of the Clark County, Ohio, Board of Elections, and asked her about what measures prevent non-U.S. citizens who might have a driver's license from voting in U.S. elections. Clark County includes Springfield.

Lopez responded by email on October 3, 2024, saying that to vote in Clark County a person must be registered to vote and the voter must affirm under penalty of election falsification -- a felony -- that they are a United States citizen.

"If they do not affirm that then their voter registration is rejected. If someone attests that they are a citizen and provides all required information, then they will be registered to vote. They will have to show their photo ID before being allowed to cast a ballot, and poll workers are trained to inspect IDs for the 'non-citizen' mark on the back," Lopez wrote.

Lopez said while that a driver's license can be used as ID to register to vote, "The Ohio Secretary of State regularly performs extensive audits of the statewide Ohio voter rolls, cross checking against BMV [Bureau of Motor Vehicles] and other state and federal databases that contain citizenship data."

Lead Stories asked Lopez how many times in the last year the Ohio secretary of state had found a non-U.S. citizen on the voter rolls or rejected a voter registration form for insufficient documentation. She replied:

In the SOS's [secretary of state's] recent audit of state voter rolls, only one non-citizen was found to be registered in Clark County and that individual had never voted. That voter was removed from the voter rolls.

Lead Stories searched for recent news stories mentioning "Springfield, Ohio," "Bureau of Motor Vehicles," "driver's license," "voting" and "Haitian immigrants" on Google News. Other than reports debunking similar claims, we found no evidence that would confirm the truth of claim (archived here).

At the time this was written, Reuters had reviewed the same claim.

More Lead Stories fact checks on claims related to Haitian immigrants are here.

Other Lead Stories fact checks on claims about the 2024 U.S. election are here.