Within the last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it charged multiple individuals with illegally voting as noncitizens in American elections. The DOJ also revealed a foreign national pleaded guilty to conspiring in a voter registration fraud scheme.
As my colleague Beth Brelje reported, the DOJ announced Monday that 45-year-old Akeel Abdul Jamiel was charged with illegally voting in the 2020 election. Jamiel, an Iraqi, allegedly voted in the November 2020 election in Saratoga County, New York, despite not being a citizen. The U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) contributed to the investigation, the DOJ noted.
[READ: Iraqi Man Charged For Illegally Voting In U.S. Election Is Another ‘Rare’ Non-Citizen Voter]
Some 1,200 miles south, 32-year-old Uzbekistan national Sanjar Jamilov pleaded guilty to “conspiring to submit fraudulent voter registrations,” the DOJ announced Tuesday. Jamilov was originally charged earlier this year, and his “sentencing date has not yet been set.”
According to a plea agreement, the DOJ explained, the scheme began when 45-year-old Russian national Dmitry Shushlebin “hired Jamilov and others to submit more than 100 fraudulent voter registration applications to the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections in February and March 2023.” The applications used names other than those of the perpetrators and “bore various indicia of fraud,” like “repeat[ed] dates of birth and addresses,” as well as “nearly sequential Social Security numbers,” according to the DOJ. The applications were rejected after a county election supervisor detected fraud.
“Dmitry Shushlebin has been charged for his alleged role in this case. The case is currently pending,” the DOJ added.
Meanwhile, the DOJ charged two Ukrainian women with unlawfully voting in the 2024 presidential election. The two women allegedly entered the country on “nonimmigrant visas” and registered to vote in federal elections “using a system that requires certification of United States citizenship, which neither of them had,” according to a Tuesday DOJ release. Both women then allegedly voted in October for the general election, “still without United States citizenship.” (When asked by The Federalist which “system” is referenced in the press release for citizenship certification, the DOJ did not clarify beyond saying it “refers to Florida’s voter registration system.”)
Republicans like Rep. Chip Roy argue cases like these underscore the need for the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which recently passed the House 220-208. The legislation, introduced by Roy, would amend the 1993 National Voter Registration Act to require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. While noncitizen voting is already illegal, current federal law is largely toothless. Prospective voters simply attest on a federal registration form under penalty of perjury that they are a citizen.
And while the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requires states to check information about newly registered voters in federal elections against information stored in the state’s motor vehicle administration database, such a system also isn’t guaranteed to catch noncitizens. Under HAVA, an individual lacking a driver’s license identification can provide the last four digits of his Social Security number when he registers to vote. Notably, noncitizens can obtain both a driver’s license and a Social Security number.
As The Federalist reported last June, in states like California, prospective voters lacking both a driver’s license identification number and a Social Security number can instead provide proof of identity — not citizenship — using low-security identification like a gym membership, utility bill, or credit card.
[READ: 5 Common Lies About The SAVE Act — And How To Refute Them]
“Non-citizens voting in U.S. elections clearly undermine the integrity of our elections. We must uphold what it means to be able to vote in a U.S. election,” Roy said in a statement to the Federalist. “Given Democrat support for the bill in the House, the Senate should take up and pass the SAVE Act, and send this important bill to President Trump’s desk to ensure that only American citizens vote in American elections.”
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
