The Justice Department is putting would-be election cheaters on notice. It announced Friday that it had charged 16 people in seven states with illegally voting, registering through false citizenship claims, and related fraud.
Eight noncitizens living in Texas are among those charged. The other cases involve defendants in Idaho, Georgia, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Michigan.
The allegations include noncitizens voting in federal elections, false claims of U.S. citizenship to register or vote, and false statements related to naturalization. Those are serious violations of the basic rule that American elections belong to American citizens.
Investigators also turned up alleged wire fraud, passport and identification fraud, and unlawful firearm purchases. In other words, the election allegations are not always standing alone.
In Georgia, prosecutors say 44-year-old Analiea Milliscent Eccles, a Venezuelan national and DACA recipient, voted nine times between 2008 and 2024. She faces counts of voting as a noncitizen and falsely claiming citizenship. If proven, that is a long pattern of illegal voting.
A federal grand jury in Boise indicted Idaho’s Avila Gomez, a Mexican national, on charges including wire fraud, passport fraud and firearm offenses. He allegedly voted in 2022 and 2024.
In New Jersey, Santana Coulibaly, a lawful permanent resident, is accused of registering to vote in 2016, voting in federal elections in 2018 and 2020, and submitting a provisional ballot in the 2024 presidential election. Lawful permanent residents have legal status to live and work here, but federal law does not allow them to vote in federal elections.
Prosecutors also arrested and charged Gladys Adaeze Okafor, 56, a Nigerian national and lawful permanent resident, with illegally voting in the 2022 elections and allegedly voting in the 2024 general election.
The department paired the announcement with a message on social media, saying those charged allegedly voted in 2022 and 2024 and warning anyone thinking of cheating to take note.
Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald of the Fraud Division told Fox News the administration has now charged 50 noncitizens with illegal voting. He said America’s elections are for Americans.
The broader federal effort is larger still. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said officials have more than 1,620 open cases and 151 arrests, and are looking into more than 300,000 suspected cases, a number he said continues to grow.
Mullin did not minimize it. He said even one case is too many, and that hundreds of thousands of cases under review is unacceptable. His figure is a count of suspected cases under review, not confirmed convictions, and the distinction matters.
The department was careful on that point too. It stressed that the charges are accusations and every defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty. That is how it should be, and the courts will decide each case on its evidence.
The cases are part of a broader Trump administration effort targeting alleged illegal voting and election-related crimes. Fox News has been tracking a growing list of election fraud cases nationwide.
The pace of enforcement has been noticeable. The Daily Caller reported this month that ICE arrested another noncitizen with a lengthy criminal record who voted in U.S. elections. The cases are coming from more than one agency, which suggests a coordinated effort.
Critics of stricter election rules often say documented noncitizen voting is rare compared to the tens of millions of ballots cast. That is a fair statistical point. Supporters answer that rarity is not a defense, and that confidence in elections depends on enforcing the rules even when violations are few.
One conservative commentator put it bluntly, saying the only acceptable number of illegal voters is none. That view is shared well beyond the right. Few Americans are comfortable with noncitizens casting ballots.
The Georgia allegation raises a practical question. If a person really did vote nine times over 16 years, how did it go undetected for so long? Better verification and data sharing between agencies could close that gap, and the size of Mullin’s review suggests the government now sees the need.
