DOJ Illegal Voting Crackdown Hits 17 States Before Midterms

The Justice Department says it has charged 64 foreign nationals across 17 states in roughly the past five weeks with unlawful voting, fraudulent voter registration and related election offenses, marking a significant escalation in election-integrity enforcement ahead of the November 2026 midterms. According to figures provided to Fox News Digital, the recent cases are part of a broader push that has produced 104 voting fraud-related charges since President Donald Trump returned to office in 2025.

Minnesota leads the latest tally with 11 defendants, followed by Pennsylvania with 10 and Texas with nine. Louisiana has five defendants, while New Jersey, California and Florida each account for four. Federal officials say the sweep reflects growing scrutiny of voter-registration safeguards as closely contested races continue to highlight how a small number of illegal ballots can matter in tight elections.

A Justice Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that every unlawful ballot offsets the vote of an eligible American citizen, pointing to Iowa's 2nd Congressional District race in 2020, which Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks won by six votes over Democrat Rita Hart. The department said prosecutors are now bringing more than twice as many election-fraud cases each week as the margin that decided that race.

The spokesperson also said voting by noncitizens and other ineligible voters is a federal crime and that the department will pursue cases involving either a single illegal ballot or much larger schemes. The allegations in the current wave range from fraudulent voter registration applications to ballots allegedly cast in multiple elections.

Cases span battlegrounds and GOP-led states

Some prosecutions have already resulted in guilty pleas. In Pennsylvania, Evelyn Miller, a Filipino national from Emmaus, pleaded guilty to illegally voting in the 2024 presidential election. She faces up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

Also in Pennsylvania, prosecutors charged Haitian national Cliff Sanon with submitting a fraudulent voter registration application in Philadelphia County. Authorities allege he filed eight registration applications and voted in the November 2022 election. U.S. Attorney David Metcalf said his office intends to prosecute anyone who corrupts elections by voting illegally.

In Minnesota, prosecutors charged Ghanaian green card holder Joshua Kofi Edzie with illegally voting in the state's August 2026 primary and falsely claiming U.S. citizenship in connection with voter registration. The state has the highest number of defendants in the latest DOJ count.

The enforcement effort also includes Republican-led states. Texas, Louisiana and Florida together account for 18 defendants in the figures shared with Fox News Digital. In Louisiana, federal prosecutors indicted former Cotton Valley mayoral candidate Bridget Johnson on a charge of voting by an alien. Prosecutors allege she submitted a voter registration in the name of Jamaican national Michael Wedderburn and falsely swore that he was a U.S. citizen. Wedderburn allegedly then voted illegally in 2024 for president and mayor, and he has also been indicted.

Why narrow margins remain part of the debate

In New Jersey, the issue has drawn added attention because of a separate controversy involving about 6,600 people who indicated they were not citizens but were mistakenly registered through the state's Motor Vehicle Commission. Fewer than 400 later voted, according to Gov. Mikie Sherrill's administration. State officials have not established that any of those votes changed an election result, and a spokesman for Sherrill previously said the governor acted with transparency and accountability to fix the 2023 error.

Republicans in the state have cited several close local contests, including 2023 municipal elections in Caldwell, Atlantic Highlands and Bogota that were decided by margins of four to six votes. Even so, authorities have not established that any case in the DOJ's nationwide tally altered the outcome of an election. The prosecutions instead underscore how federal officials are approaching voter-registration safeguards and illegal voting allegations with greater urgency as the 2026 midterms approach.