Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose is moving to purge hundreds of non-citizens currently registered to vote after an election year audit revealed flaws in state voter rolls.

The audit uncovered 499 individuals who were registered to vote but were not U.S. citizens. The removals announced Thursday include individuals who confirmed their non-citizen status to the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles. That data was then paired with the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, which also confirmed them to be non-citizens.

"These individuals failed to respond to notices from the Secretary of State’s office asking that they either confirm their citizenship status or cancel their registration," LaRose's office said in a statement.

Officials clarified that any individual losing their registration as a result of Thursday's action may submit a provisional ballot, which "will be counted upon proof of citizenship."

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"I swore an oath to uphold the constitution of our state, and that document clearly states that only United States citizens can participate in Ohio elections," LaRose told Fox News Digital in a statement. "That means I’m duty-bound to make sure people who haven’t yet earned citizenship in this country aren’t voting. If or when they do become citizens, I’ll be the first one to congratulate them and welcome them to the franchise, but until then the law requires us to remove ineligible registrations to prevent illegal voting."

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Ohio law requires that in order for a person to be removed from voter rolls, they must have confirmed their lack of citizenship to the BMV on two separate occasions, and also have updated their voter registration or voted in between the two occasions.

Ohio had previously removed 136 non-citizens from its voter rolls in May. That action came as a result of an internal investigation relying on state data. LaRose called on President Biden's administration to release the federal SAVE data at the time and the administration complied with the request, leading to Thursday's action.

The improper voter registration could result in prosecution for some, but LaRose cautioned that not all instances are criminal. His office's Election Integrity Unit will refer cases for criminal prosecution when applicable, however.

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"I want to give these folks the benefit of the doubt and say that most of them didn’t intend to break the law," LaRose said.

Ohio's audit remains an ongoing process, and LaRose's office says it may announce more voter roll purges as Election Day nears. The state has also removed nearly 155,000 registrations confirmed to be abandoned and inactive for at least four consecutive years.

"We want to make sure a mistaken registration doesn’t become an illegal vote. We also want to make sure that lawfully registered citizens can participate seamlessly in the process," LaRose said.

Senators are now accusing the Secret Service of trying to make local law enforcement into "a scapegoat" for the Trump rally shooting after its acting director testified this week about why gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks wasn’t spotted in advance in Butler, Pennsylvania. 

Ronald Rowe, during his Capitol Hill testimony on Tuesday, appeared to blame local police for not seeing Crooks on top of the building from which he ultimately fired from. However, on Wednesday, the district attorney of Butler County disputed Rowe’s account and told Fox News that local snipers were not responsible for monitoring that rooftop. 

"I think they’re looking for a scapegoat," Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told The Washington Times following Rowe’s testimony. 

"This has a lot of CYA [cover your a--] feel to it," added Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. 

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As part of his testimony, Rowe showed senators an image of the roof of the building that Crooks scaled prior to opening fire at former President Trump. 

"This is from the second floor of the building. This point of view is the point of view where the counter sniper team locally was posted," he said. "The gold arrow indicates where the shooter fired from. Looking left, why was the assailant not seen? When we were told that building was going to be covered, that there had been a face to face that afternoon, that our team leads met." 

Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger told Fox News the next day he coordinated local snipers working at the July 13 rally and they were assigned to a window with a different vantage point than the one Rowe pointed to during his testimony. 

Goldinger added that monitoring the roof of the AGR building, where Crooks perched and opened fire, was not the local snipers' assignment. 

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Hawley told The Washington Times he has heard different stories from whistleblowers on both sides and "there’s a lot of blaming each other." 

"What I heard yesterday was a lot of wanting to litigate who’s really to blame, ‘It’s really not us; it really wasn’t that bad,’" Hawley said on Wednesday, regarding Rowe’s comments. 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said to The Washington Times that "the Secret Service throwing local law enforcement under the bus [is] not only unfair, but also unwise." 

"They’re going to have trouble getting local police to cooperate if they make them the ones to blame when anything goes wrong," he reportedly added. 

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich.., meanwhile, said he is reserving final judgment until the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that he chairs interviews all parties involved at the rally shooting, according to The Washington Times. 

"In my mind, at this point, [the] Secret Service should have been aware of how strategically significant that rooftop was when it comes to a potential threat," he was quoted as saying. 

Fox News' Christina Coulter and CB Cotton contributed to this report.