DOJ Charges 16 in Election Fraud Sweep as Total Reaches 104 Ahead of Midterms

The Justice Department announced on Monday charges against 16 individuals spanning 11 federal districts, with cases ranging from a New Mexico man who allegedly tried to submit his late wife's absentee ballot to a Cuban national in Missouri who reportedly cast ballots in American elections for the better part of two decades without ever acquiring U.S. citizenship. The announcement landed 22 days before the November 3 midterms — and prosecutors made clear the pace is not slowing.

André García, 64, a Cuban national living as a lawful permanent resident in Missouri, faces two federal counts of illegally voting — once in November 2022 and again in November 2024. Prosecutors allege he first falsely claimed U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in 2004, repeated that claim during a second registration in 2013, and went on to cast ballots in at least 15 elections over roughly 20 years, including no fewer than 13 federal races. The scale of García's alleged conduct — predating the current enforcement push by nearly two decades — points to a persistent gap in the voter-registration systems that were supposed to catch exactly this kind of pattern.

The Absentee Ballot Cast for a Dead Woman

Patrick Perea, 62, of New Mexico, is one of the few U.S. citizens among the 16 defendants. A federal grand jury indicted him on one count of fraudulent voting for allegedly attempting to submit his deceased wife's absentee ballot in the November 2024 general election by turning it in to the Bureau of Elections of the Bernalillo County Clerk's Office in Albuquerque. His case reflects a different strain of election fraud — driven not by immigration status but by deliberate deception rooted in something other than confusion about the rules.

Noncitizens From Eleven Countries, Nine States

The bulk of Monday's charges targeted lawful permanent residents — and in one instance, a person prosecutors describe as an undocumented immigrant — from France, Pakistan, Portugal, Peru, Jamaica, Cuba, Canada, the United Kingdom, Poland, the Philippines, and the Dominican Republic.

In Pennsylvania's Eastern District, four individuals were charged with voting as noncitizens in the 2024 election: Hacina Saadi, 48, described in court documents as an undocumented immigrant from France, along with three lawful permanent residents — Pakistani nationals Jamil Ahmad, 50, and Nighat Jamil, 47, and Portuguese national Paulo Silva, 54. In Alabama, two additional permanent residents allegedly voted without having acquired citizenship: Silvia Delgado Phelps, 78, a Peruvian national charged with casting multiple ballots in Baldwin County, and Staciann Pollion Davis, 42, a Jamaican national who allegedly voted in Clarke County in November 2024.

In Ohio's Southern District, British national Cary Ann Patterson, 59, allegedly voted in at least 10 elections after a voter registration card in her name was received by the Gallia County Board of Elections in 2005, with "Yes" checked on the citizenship question. In the Northern District of Ohio, Filipino national Eliza Moss, 63, allegedly told investigators that the person who helped fill out her registration paperwork said she could vote even without citizenship — a detail that raises questions about willfulness, a factor that typically shapes how aggressively prosecutors pursue a case.

In New Jersey, the case took a distinct shape: Lizabeth Almonte Rosa, 24, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from the Dominican Republic, was charged with both voting as an alien and with unlawfully procuring citizenship. Prosecutors allege she was not yet a citizen when she first registered to vote, making her the only defendant in Monday's batch who has since obtained naturalization.

Double Voting and an Overstayed Visa

Forrest Scott Woody, 68, of Hendersonville, North Carolina, was indicted for allegedly voting twice in the 2024 general election — first in Henderson County, North Carolina, and then again in Calhoun County, Alabama. Woody is a U.S. citizen charged specifically with casting multiple ballots, not with noncitizen voting.

In Hawaii, Polish national Dawid Nalepa, 45, arrived in the United States around 2020 through the Visa Waiver Program, overstayed his authorized period, and later filed for permanent resident status. He allegedly voted in November 2024 fully aware that he had not yet attained citizenship.

A Crackdown That Keeps Growing With the Midterms in Sight

Monday's sweep is part of a significantly larger Trump administration enforcement push. According to DOJ figures provided to Fox News Digital, federal prosecutors charged 64 foreign nationals across 17 states with noncitizen voting, fraudulent voter registration, and related election offenses in roughly the past five weeks, pushing the total number of people charged with voting fraud-related offenses since January 2025 to 104.

Attorney General Todd Blanche has consistently framed the effort in stark terms. In remarks tied to earlier cases in this enforcement wave, Blanche said: "The integrity of our elections, which are fundamental to democracy, should be of utmost importance to every American. Election fraud is a serious crime, and it is the duty of the Department of Justice to treat it as such." At a White House press briefing, Blanche also claimed the administration had brought nearly four times as many noncitizen-voting cases in under two years as the prior administration filed across four years.

Critics maintain that the individual prosecutions, while real, remain statistically marginal given the scale of American elections. Pennsylvania's Secretary of the Commonwealth, Republican Al Schmidt — who previously uncovered one of the largest documented instances of noncitizen voting as Philadelphia's city commissioner — has repeatedly stated that such cases are extremely rare and that the state's elections are conducted securely. Blanche, separately, has confirmed that a Supreme Court ruling affecting the administration's mail-in ballot policy has no bearing on the ongoing criminal investigations into illegal voting.

What the Defendants Face Next

All 16 defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The penalties they face differ substantially: voting as an alien in a federal election carries a maximum of one year in federal prison under 18 U.S.C. § 611(a), while falsely claiming U.S. citizenship on government forms can draw up to five years under 18 U.S.C. § 1015(f). Prosecutors appear to be working through a backlog of cases assembled since 2024, and with Election Day now 22 days out, Monday's batch is unlikely to be the final word before voters go to the polls on November 3.

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