Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) has finally closed the investigation into possible voter fraud in the 2012 election, declaring, “voter fraud does exist, but it is not an epidemic.”

To illustrate his point, Husted noted that the 135 cases of possible voter fraud referred for further investigation are a tiny percentage of more than 5.6 million votes cast in the presidential election last November. Most of these cases involved people who tried to double-vote by either voting in two different precincts or sending an absentee ballot and then showing up at the polls. According to a Cincinnati Enquirer report, most of these voters were not trying to swing the election illegally, but were worried their ballots got lost in the mail or followed incorrect instructions from poll workers.

Husted emphasized the fact that the safeguards in the voting system prevented these people from actually getting both their votes counted, as most cast one or more provisional ballots. Provisional ballots are used if there is some question regarding the voter’s eligibility, and are often discarded even if the voter is legitimate.

Conservative groups searching for compelling evidence of in-person voter fraud have seized on Ohio’s investigation as proof that voting restrictions, like strict voter ID laws, are necessary. Before the election, Husted toyed with supporting a strict voter ID law pushed by Republican lawmakers, but ultimately dropped it despite enthusiastic Republican support. After the voter fraud investigation, however, Husted observed that “a photo ID wouldn’t have mattered in most of these cases.”

However, the Secretary was quick to note that the investigation uncovered no evidence of voter suppression. Husted became one of the most notorious election officials of 2012 due to his multiple attempts to bend the law and restrict early voting hours despite multiple counties’ requests to stay open to accommodate residents. A report after the election determined that Husted’s early voting restrictions created much longer lines for urban voters than those in suburban or rural areas. Though Husted is claiming there was no formal evidence of voter suppression, the marathon lines endured by thousands of voters in Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati speak for themselves.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted became one of the villains of the 2012 presidential election for his multi-pronged efforts to restrict voting. After the election, Husted ordered all boards of elections to hold public hearings on voter fraud suspicions. Conservatives, long bereft of compelling evidence that in-person voter fraud actually exists, rushed to point out Hamilton County, Ohio, where 93 cases of anomaly votes are being investigated by the board.

The only problem is, 59 of the voters facing possible felony prosecution appear to have cast two ballots by mistake — and ultimately only had one ballot counted. The Cincinnati Enquirer conducted an extensive review of these cases, finding that most involve errors by Board of Elections employees or voter confusion:

• Five are the result of acknowledged errors by a board of elections office. In another nine cases, voters said they did what they did because a Board of Elections employee told them – or didn’t tell them – what to do.

• Eight are the result of postage problems.

• 12 came from people who were confused, according to the board’s own investigation.

On Wednesday, the board of elections split along party lines over whether 39 of these voters should be reviewed for prosecution. Husted will now have to decide whether to pursue cases like 64-year-old Bella Lipavisky, a Russian immigrant and long-time voter who feared she made a mistake on her absentee ballot and was told to cast a provisional ballot by poll workers. Many other Ohioans shared similar worries with the Enquirer that they had made an error on their absentee ballot or that it would not reach the board of elections. These voters then showed up at the polls and cast provisional ballots, which are used if the voter’s legitimacy is in question. In all 39 cases reviewed Wednesday, only one vote was counted.

Tim Burke, Hamilton County Board of Elections chairman, expressed misgivings to the Enquirer about “an effort by some to make it appear there is more voter fraud than there actually is” by inflating the number of allegations with people who were simply confused by the system. The Hamilton County prosecutor, Joe Deters (R), has charged 6 people for voter fraud thus far.

It’s no surprise these voters were concerned their ballots would not count; Ohio has the highest number of provisional ballots in the country, and routinely tosses thousands of legitimate votes every election. The confusion among voters and poll workers was exacerbated by Husted’s war with the courts over his voting hour restrictions and last-minute changes to vote protocols. Critics predicted that even Husted’s well-intentioned initiative to mail absentee ballot request forms to every registered voter would flood the system with provisional ballots from people who chose to return an absentee ballot application but later decided to vote in person. Sure enough, the number of provisional ballots increased in several Democratic strongholds.

While the hearings have netted a couple of cases of legitimate voter fraud — a nun who voted for a friend who passed away shortly before the election and a poll worker who filled out ballots for her granddaughter and other relatives — they make up less than .0034 percent of all Ohio voters. By contrast, laws meant to combat voter fraud raised obstacles for hundreds of thousands of people — primarily minority, low-income, and elderly Americans — trying to cast their votes all over the country. As many as 49,000 people in Florida, Ohio’s partner in election woes, were discouraged from voting by Republican voter suppression laws.

In 1979, the Supreme Court affirmed a decision holding that state cannot place unique burdens on college student votes that do not apply to other members of the electorate. Nevertheless, Ohio Republicans now want to punish state universities that encourage students to cast a ballot. Under a budget amendment filed by Republicans in the Ohio House, state universities that provide documents enabling students to register to vote in their college town, rather than in the state where their parents reside, will be forbidden from charging those students out-of-state tuition. Thus, the amendment would effectively reduce the funding of state schools that assist their students in registering to vote.

This is the second GOP attempt to restrict college students from voting in just the past month. About a month ago, a North Carolina Republican lawmaker filed a bill that would raise taxes on families with college students if the student registers to vote at school rather than in their parents’ hometown.

It’s not difficult to guess why Republicans support these — and other — efforts to make it harder for college students to cast a ballot. As former New Hampshire House Speaker William O’Brien (R) said when explaining his support for measures to make it harder to vote, “the kids coming out of the schools and basically doing what I did when I was a kid, which is voting as a liberal. That’s what kids do.”