Chinese national accused of illegally voting in Michigan, authorities say

CNN
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Prosecutors in Michigan have charged a Chinese citizen with voter fraud and perjury after he allegedly cast a ballot in the 2024 election, authorities announced Wednesday.

Sources familiar with the matter told CNN that the 19-year-old Chinese man alleged to have voted is a student living in Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan. Authorities said the man is not a U.S. citizen and therefore cannot vote in federal elections.

The announcement from Michigan’s secretary of state and attorney general and local prosecutors in Ann Arbor comes as former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies spread concerns about mass voting by non-citizens. Experts say illegal voting by non-citizens is extremely rare, and when it does happen it is usually quickly noticed.

“Research in multiple states and across the country has found no evidence that large numbers of noncitizens have registered to vote. Even less common is for a non-citizen to actually cast a vote. If it does happen, we will take it very seriously,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit, both Democrats, said in a statement.

They also said that “any noncitizen who attempts to vote fraudulently in Michigan will expose themselves to great risk and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Investigators in Michigan are still investigating whether this was an isolated incident, an accident or possibly part of an effort by China to interfere in the 2024 election, and federal investigators are also looking into the matter, a source familiar with the matter said the case to CNN.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is also a Democrat, said in a statement that her office has launched an “independent, parallel investigation” into the situation.

Authorities have not identified the Chinese student accused of voting in the election. He faces one count of illegal voting and one count of perjury – both felonies.

It turns out that the student’s vote cannot be nullified afterwards and will be counted.

Washtenaw County Clerk Lawrence Kestenbaum told CNN ballots can no longer be retrieved once they have gone through the tabulation. Unlike voting by mail, ballots cast at in-person voting locations do not contain identifying information about the individual voter, making it impossible to determine which one belonged to the student, Kestenbaum said.

“There’s a box of ballots under the table and all the ballots — they all look the same … there’s no way to go back and undo it,” Kestenbaum said in an interview.

Experts say this is standard election procedure to maintain secrecy.

“A personal ballot is placed in a tabulator or ballot box, mixed with other ballots. This is to maintain secrecy so you can’t go back to the ballot later and confirm who a particular pastor voted for,” said David Becker, a former Justice Department voting rights official and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research.

After the charges were announced, Michigan GOP operatives And state legislators used the news to criticize Democrats for not requiring proof of citizenship to vote.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, an election law expert at Stetson University, said this is one of the “disadvantages” of the secret ballot, which was instituted to prevent vote buying.

Earlier in American history, different colored ballots were sometimes used for different political parties, making it easier to interfere in the process. The secret ballot for in-person voting ensures that “no one can trace a particular vote back to a particular voter,” Torres-Spelliscy said.

“It is basically impossible to pick out an improperly cast ballot because it looks like any other ballot cast by an eligible voter,” said Torres-Spelliscy, a CNN contributor, adding that the Chinese national who in Michigan “swore under penalty of perjury that he was a U.S. citizen, so this explains why pollsters wanted to give him a ballot.”