Authorities say Chinese national faces charges of illegal voting in Michigan

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

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

The announcement from Michigan's secretary of state and attorney general, as well as local prosecutors in Ann Arbor, comes as former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies raise 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 caught quickly.

The Chinese man – a student at the University of Michigan – cast his vote on Sunday and contacted local election officials later in the day to try to get the ballot back, according to a source familiar with the situation.

The man registered to vote at the polling station on Sunday, the source said. He used his college ID and other documents to prove his residency in Ann Arbor while filling out a voter registration form that same day, the source said. The Detroit News first reported the details.

The suspect is in the United States legally, the source added. If convicted, he could potentially be deported over the incident, legal experts said.

“Research in multiple states and across the country has found no evidence that large numbers of non-citizens have registered to vote. It is even rarer for a non-citizen to actually cast a vote. If it happens, we take it extremely seriously,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Washtenaw County Attorney Eli Savit, both Democrats, said in a statement.

They also said that “any non-citizen who attempts to vote fraudulently in Michigan is placing themselves at grave risk and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

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

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

Authorities did not identify the Chinese student accused of participating in the election. He faces one count of attempting to vote illegally and one count of perjury, both felonies.

It appears that the student's vote cannot be subsequently canceled and will be counted.

Lawrence Kestenbaum, county clerk in Washtenaw County, told CNN that ballots cannot be retrieved once they pass through the tabulator. Unlike absentee voting, ballots cast at in-person voting locations do not contain identifying information about the individual voter, making it impossible to determine which voter belonged to the student, Kestenbaum said.

“Under the tabulator there's a box of ballots and all the ballots – they all look the same … there's no way to undo it,” Kestenbaum said in an interview.

Experts said this was a standard election procedure to maintain secrecy.

“An in-person ballot is placed in a tabulator or ballot box and mixed with other ballots. This is to maintain secrecy so that you won't be able to ask later when you're voting who a particular pastor voted for,” said David Becker, a former Justice Department proxy and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research.

After the charges were announced, GOP activists and Michigan state lawmakers 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 was one of the “downsides” of secret voting, which was introduced to prevent vote buying.

Earlier in U.S. history, different colored ballots were sometimes used for different political parties, making it easier to interfere in the process. Secret balloting for in-person voting ensures that “no one can assign a specific vote to a specific voter,” Torres-Spelliscy said.

“It is fundamentally impossible to pull out a miscast 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 voted in Michigan “who swore under penalty of perjury.” He was an American citizen, which explains why poll workers gave him a ballot.”