Recently, several people have been arrested and charged with election fraud across the United States. The Trump administration and several states have stepped up their investigations.
The previous day, we reported on the arrests in Florida. Here we take a closer look at the Department of Justice’s efforts to combat election fraud, as well as a case at state level in which homeless people were used to forge election signatures in California.
A week ago, the [Department of Justice announced](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-charges-16-individuals-illegal-voting-and-related-election-crimes) that it had charged 16 people in connection with illegal voting in several parts of the country.
The charges include illegal voting by people who are unlawfully present in the United States and other non-US citizens, as well as false statements about citizenship.
In some cases, wire fraud, naturalisation and passport fraud, and illegal firearms purchases have also been uncovered.
One of them, Avila Gomez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was arrested in Idaho and has been charged with nine serious offences.
He is alleged to have falsely represented himself as a US citizen in order to register to vote and subsequently to have voted in the 2022 midterm elections and the 2024 presidential election.
Gomez is also charged with fraudulently obtaining an Idaho identification card and with making false statements when purchasing firearms. He is additionally charged with unlawful possession of firearms.
In an NBC News report on the arrests, US Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin says that the authorities are now investigating 1,620 cases and that 151 people have been arrested.
In addition, around 300,000 election-fraud cases are being reviewed, and according to Mullin, the list is growing longer by the day.
Many of the cases go back several years. In New Jersey, Santana Coulibaly illegally registered to vote in October 2016 and voted in federal elections in 2018 and 2020, as well as in the 2024 presidential election.
Coulibaly also provided false information in applications for US citizenship in December 2021 and October 2024.
In Massachusetts, Nigerian citizen Gladys Adaeze Okafor (56) was arrested and charged with voting illegally in the 2022 midterm elections and allegedly also in the 2024 presidential election.
In Wisconsin, Colombian citizen Julieta Englestad (53) has been charged with stating that she was a US citizen when she registered to vote in the federal election in November 2022.
In Michigan, Russian citizen Victoria Viktorivna Aquilina (43) registered to vote in 2023 and was charged with voting illegally in the 2024 presidential election.
She came to the United States more than 20 years [ago](https://www.facebook.com/CBSDetroit/posts/victoria-viktorovna-aquilina-43-entered-the-us-more-than-20-years-ago-and-never-/1734376885364162/) as an au pair and never became a citizen.
In Texas, nine foreign nationals were arrested and charged with illegal voting in a federal election. The defendants are from Mexico, Nigeria, India and Congo.
And in Georgia, three people were arrested for voting in a federal election. One of them is an illegal immigrant, and the other two are suspected of being in the country illegally.
Depending on the seriousness of the offence, penalties for election fraud can include up to five years’ imprisonment.
### Exploitation of homeless people on Skid Row
Three people have been charged with exploiting homeless people in Los Angeles to forge signatures for ballot propositions, [ABC7 Eyewitness News reports](https://abc7.com/post/3-people-charged-allegedly-using-los-angeles-homeless-forge-signatures-for-ballot-propositions/19816869/).
James Brass, 47, of Victorville, also known as ‘Lord’, is alleged to have coordinated a team of signature gatherers who used homeless people on Skid Row to forge signatures in order to get propositions onto the ballot.
Two of Brass’s employees, Courtney Price, 49, of Jacksonville, Florida, and Jateisha Herron, 33, of Boron, California, have also been charged. Lord is pictured on the right in the image from ABC’s Instagram account.
According to US Attorney Bill Essayli, Brass exploited homeless people because they were a vulnerable group who could be persuaded to commit fraud for a few dollars.
Essayli also said that Brass knew it would be difficult for investigators to interview people on Skid Row.
In California, residents can place proposals for new laws or amendments to the state constitution on the ballot by collecting signatures from registered voters.
In 2026, 546,651 valid signatures are required for a statutory initiative and 874,641 for a constitutional initiative. The signatures are verified by election officials.
According to prosecutors, Brass and his co-defendants had access to information about registered voters through a programme.
They could retrieve the names of registered voters and then pay homeless people to sign using those names.
Brass is alleged to have received more than $41,000 from a company that administers signature-gathering campaigns.
Essayli would not disclose who had hired or paid Brass, but said that the investigation is continuing.
According to Essayli, Brass and his team collected signatures for around a dozen ballot propositions. Some of them are alleged to have made it onto the ballot, but the authorities have not disclosed which ones.
[https://www.document.no/2026/09/25/valgsvindel-i-florida-20-personer-tiltalt](https://www.document.no/2026/09/25/valgsvindel-i-florida-20-personer-tiltalt)
