The Justice Department announced charges against 63 people on the day before the midterm elections, in cases it describes as illegal voting, fraudulent voter registration and related election crimes. The cases are spread across federal districts in Georgia, Texas, Maryland, the three districts of North Carolina, the three districts of Tennessee and New Jersey, and the department says they involve voting by noncitizens in federal elections, false claims of citizenship made in order to register or to vote, and one fraudulent voter registration application submitted in another state.
Four of the 63 are described in the announcement as illegal aliens. Many of the others listed are lawful permanent residents, people holding green cards, charged over votes cast in elections that in some of the cases go back more than a decade.
Attorney General Todd Blanche called it "the largest surge of voter-fraud arrests since President Trump returned to office" and said the department "will continue investigating and prosecuting voter fraud to restore confidence in our electoral system."
The numbers the department gives
The release puts this group inside a larger count. In the last nine weeks, the department says, it has charged 195 noncitizens across 25 states with illegal voting and registration offenses. Since the start of the administration, it puts the total at 239 people charged with voting-fraud-related offenses.
The announcement ends with the department's standard line on charging documents: "A complaint, indictment, and information merely contain accusations. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law."
What the two main charges carry
Most of the listed cases rest on two federal statutes, which carry different maximum sentences.
| Statute | What it covers | Maximum penalty |
|---|---|---|
| 18 U.S.C. 611 | Voting by a noncitizen in an election held for federal office | One year in prison, a fine, or both |
| 18 U.S.C. 1015(f) | Knowingly making a false claim of U.S. citizenship in order to register or to vote | Five years in prison, a fine, or both |
Both statutes carry the same narrow exception. Neither applies to a person whose parents were U.S. citizens, who lived in the United States permanently before turning 16 and who reasonably believed at the time of voting that they were a citizen. It is a defense a defendant has to establish, and it fits a specific situation rather than a general misunderstanding about eligibility.
What the announcement does not say
The release lists names, ages, nationalities, districts and the elections involved. It does not report outcomes. There is no count of convictions, acquittals or dismissals among the 239 cases the department cites, and no description of how the voters in these cases were identified.
Several entries describe registrations and votes stretching across many years. One North Carolina case alleges a lawful permanent resident registered in 2008 and voted in nine general elections and nine primaries since then. Another alleges a registration in 2000 and votes in 12 general elections. Those are allegations in charging documents, and none of the cases listed has been tried.
The announcement is numbered 26-1308 and came from the Office of the Attorney General through the Office of Public Affairs. The department separately said this week that it is sending about 1,000 monitors to polling places in all 50 states, its largest such deployment.
