SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California announced criminal charges Nov. 2 against six California residents accused of voting in federal elections despite allegedly being ineligible because they were not U.S. citizens.
The charges involve voting in the November 2024 presidential election and, in one case, the November 2022 midterm election. The announcement was part of a broader Justice Department initiative involving 63 individuals charged with election-related offenses nationwide.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the six defendants are lawful permanent residents originally from the Philippines and Portugal.
Four are Philippine nationals residing in Hanford, Fresno, Vallejo and Sacramento. The remaining two are Portuguese nationals residing in Visalia and Turlock.
Federal prosecutors allege that all six voted in the Nov. 5, 2024, presidential election, while one also voted in the Nov. 8, 2022, midterm election.
Each defendant faces a federal charge of voting illegally as a noncitizen. If convicted, each faces a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.
The cases were investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security Investigations. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joshua Banister and Kevin Khasigian are prosecuting the cases.
According to the Justice Department, two defendants made their initial federal court appearances Oct. 30, while three others were scheduled to appear Nov. 2. The announcement did not specify an appearance date for the sixth defendant.
U.S. Attorney Eric Grant said the charges demonstrate the federal government’s commitment to enforcing election laws.
“These complaints reflect the seriousness with which the United States government strives to protect the privileges of American citizenship,” Grant said.
“The right to vote is one of the most fundamental of those privileges, and its theft by noncitizens will be prosecuted.”
Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in elections involving federal offices, including presidential and congressional elections.
California law also establishes criminal penalties for fraudulent voting and other election-related offenses.
According to the California Secretary of State’s election penalty provisions, state law prohibits individuals from fraudulently voting when they are not entitled to participate in an election.
The provisions also address voting more than once, attempting to vote more than once and impersonating another voter.
The six cases announced by the Eastern District of California are federal prosecutions, meaning the penalties are governed by federal rather than California law.
The charges were announced as part of a broader Justice Department statement describing criminal cases involving 63 individuals nationwide.
The department said the cases involved allegations of illegal voting, fraudulent voter registration, false claims of U.S. citizenship and other election-related offenses.
“Today’s announcement marks the largest surge of voter-fraud arrests since President Trump returned to office,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said.
The Justice Department also reported that federal prosecutors had charged 195 noncitizens across 25 states with illegal voting and registration offenses during the preceding nine weeks.
The department said 239 individuals had been charged with voting fraud-related offenses since the beginning of the Trump administration.
The announced prosecutions come amid continuing disputes over the prevalence of voter fraud and the reliability of claims that unlawful voting is widespread.
Research has examined the relationship between political attitudes, racial perceptions and beliefs about election fraud.
A 2025 study published in the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics by Cambridge University Press examined how racial attitudes influenced beliefs about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election and support for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The researchers analyzed survey data collected before and after the 2020 election and following the Capitol attack.
They found that white respondents expressing stronger preferences for their own racial group were more likely to question the legitimacy of the 2020 election after Donald Trump’s defeat.
The study also identified an association between those racial attitudes and greater sympathy for the Jan. 6 attack and its participants.
The findings concerned perceptions of election fraud and political behavior rather than documented instances of illegal voting.
Separately, a September 2026 article published by the American Bar Association examined allegations of widespread voter fraud and the potential effects of misinformation on public confidence in elections.
The article argued that unsupported allegations of widespread fraud can undermine confidence in election administration and discourage democratic participation.
The research and commentary address broader public claims about election fraud and do not determine whether the six California defendants committed the offenses alleged by federal prosecutors.
The Justice Department’s announcement identifies individual criminal cases, while the broader question of how frequently noncitizens vote requires separate evidence about the electorate as a whole.
The federal complaints remain allegations, and all six defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
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