DOJ Charges 64 Foreign Nationals With Illegal Voting Across 17 States Ahead of Midterms

The Justice Department has charged 64 foreign nationals across 17 states with unlawful voting, fraudulent voter registration and related election offenses over roughly the past five weeks, according to department figures shared with reporters, intensifying federal election-integrity enforcement ahead of November’s midterms.

Minnesota leads with 11 defendants, followed by Pennsylvania with 10 and Texas with nine. Louisiana has five cases, while New Jersey, California and Florida each account for four. Since President Trump returned to office in 2025, DOJ says it has charged 104 people with voting fraud-related offenses overall.

Narrow margins drive the crackdown

A department spokesperson said every illegal ballot cancels a lawful citizen’s vote and pointed to Iowa’s 2020 2nd Congressional District race, decided by six votes. Prosecutors say they are now bringing more than twice as many election-fraud cases each week as that margin. “Voting by noncitizens and other ineligible voters is a federal crime, and the department will enforce the law whether a case involves one illegal ballot or hundreds,” the spokesperson said.

Authorities have not established that any of the cases in the nationwide tally changed an election outcome. Allegations range from fraudulent registration applications to ballots cast in multiple elections.

Cases from Minnesota to Louisiana

In Minnesota, Ghanaian green-card holder Joshua Kofi Edzie was charged with illegally voting in the state’s August 2026 primary and falsely claiming U.S. citizenship when registering. Attorney General Todd Blanche has separately announced charges against lawful permanent residents accused of voting illegally in Minnesota federal elections.

In Pennsylvania, Filipino national Evelyn Miller of Emmaus pleaded guilty to illegally voting in the 2024 presidential election and faces up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine. Prosecutors also charged Haitian national Cliff Sanon with submitting a fraudulent registration in Philadelphia County and voting in November 2022.

Republican-led states are part of the tally as well. Texas, Louisiana and Florida together account for 18 defendants. In Louisiana, federal prosecutors indicted an ex-mayoral candidate and a Jamaican national over an alleged scheme involving a false citizenship oath and illegal votes for president and mayor in 2024.

Registration safeguards under scrutiny

The prosecutions come as officials scrutinize voter-registration systems ahead of the midterms. In New Jersey, a separate controversy involved roughly 6,600 people who indicated they were not citizens but were erroneously registered through the Motor Vehicle Commission; fewer than 400 subsequently voted, according to the governor’s office. State officials say they moved to remediate the 2023 error and have not shown that any affected voter flipped a result.

U.S. Attorney David Metcalf of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said prosecutors intend to pursue anyone who corrupts elections by voting illegally. The midterm calendar and a string of historically close local contests have kept the push at the center of the national debate over who is eligible to cast a ballot.