DOJ Hails Surge in Voter-Fraud Cases, but Evidence of Widespread Conspiracy is Missing

On the eve of the midterm elections, the Justice Department announced charges against 63 people for alleged election-related offenses across 15 states, hailing the cases as the largest surge in voter-fraud charges since President Donald Trump returned to office.

But a review of cases announced November 2 suggests a much less sweeping story than the administration’s rhetoric. Most involve lawful permanent residents accused of voting or registering to vote despite not being U.S. citizens. The allegations span multiple elections and do not establish the kind of coordinated effort that President Donald Trump often says influences election results.

Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department would continue pursuing voter fraud to “restore confidence in our electoral system.” The announcement came as Trump continues to allege widespread voting by potentially millions of illegal voters still on the rolls.

“They will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!” wrote the presidentin a Truth Social post in October regarding a Department of Justice (DOJ) letter to LA County warning of prosecution for the county if non-citizens’ votes are counted. Trump also wrote there are potentially “Hundreds of Thousands and maybe even Millions” of illegal voters still out there in a Halloween post.

News of these charges from the DOJ was dropped just hours before midterm election day and came as the latest in a series of recent pushes from the DOJ to highlight examples of election crimes nationwide. In the last nine weeks, the DOJ has charged 195 noncitizens across 25 states with voting related offenses.

Just days before the DOJ announcement, however, The Washington Post published an analysis of 180 voter-fraud cases. It found no allegations of an organized effort to recruit noncitizen voters, and reported that some defendants described mistakenly registering or voting. Blanche himself acknowledged that investigators hadn't uncovered a pattern.

Blanche described these new charges as the “latest surge in voter-fraud arrests since President Trump returned to office.” Yet those accused remain miniscule compared to the 154 million Americans who votedin the 2024 elections.

In the Nov. 2 news release, the DOJ said that the 63 individuals were charged with a variety of election-related crimes consisting of voting by aliens in federal elections, false claims of U.S. citizenship to register to vote or to actually vote, and the fraudulent submission of a voter registration application in another state.

While Blanche asserts that these charges are evidence of a much larger network of voter fraud, analysis of these allegations doesn’t necessarily support the Attorney General’s proposed theory.

It’s difficult to connect any of these cases to each other, especially given the diverse backgrounds of the defendants, hailing from a huge swath of countries such as Canada, Israel, Bangladesh, Italy, England, Kenya, Singapore, Bermuda, Jamaica, the Netherlands, Mexico, Nigeria, France, Germany and more. Likewise, these alleged crimes took place across the country, from Tennessee to Texas, from North Carolina to New York. In fact, no federal judicial district yielded charges for more than nine individuals, with most far below nine.

Of the 63 people charged, 59 were actually in the country legally. However, legal permanent residents, commonly known as green card holders, still cannot vote or register to vote in federal elections.

Even still, some of those charged hadn’t voted illegally. For example Dominican Republic national Rosanny Fabre Villa, 28, a lawful permanent resident, was charged with making a false statement of citizenship in order to vote. Villa allegedly submitted a voter registration application that she knew was fraudulent where she falsely claimed to be a United States citizen, according to the DOJ.

One case involved a U.S. citizen. According to the DOJ, Robert Glenn Johnson, 63, of Annapolis, Maryland, was charged with fraudulently submitting a voter registration application in New Mexico. Johnson allegedly submitted a voter registration application to the Bernalillo County Clerk’s Office Bureau of Elections in Albuquerque falsely claiming to be a New Mexico resident.

One section of the new DOJ allegations which has drawn attention is that six individuals in the Central District of California were charged not with illegal voting but rather making false statements on their naturalization applications. But while these individuals were indeed charged with falsifying naturalization statements and not fraudulent voting, all six of them did illegally vote in U.S. elections as well.

Previous investigations by state election officials have found only small numbers of suspected noncitizen voters, even after extensive reviews of voter registration records.