Alleged instance of an illegal vote by a noncitizen in the 2024 election of a key electoral state, according to law enforcement officials.
In a significant development, Naseef Bryan, a 34-year-old immigrant from Jamaica, has been charged with three counts of wrongful voting in the 2024 presidential election in New Hampshire. Bryan's arraignment is scheduled for August at the Ninth Circuit Court, Manchester District Division.
Bryan's arrest is part of growing concerns over noncitizens illegally voting across the country. In a related development, state Attorney General Ken Paxton in Texas is investigating over 100 potential noncitizens who allegedly cast at least 200 ballots in the 2020 and 2022 election cycles. The majority of the suspected illegal ballots cast by potential noncitizens in Texas were discovered due to the use of the SAVE Database, an executive order signed by former President Donald Trump in 2020 that allowed the Department of Homeland Security to provide the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service's SAVE Database to the states.
In New Hampshire, the Republican-backed law requiring proof of U.S. citizenship for voting was passed in 2024 and took effect after the 2024 presidential election. Since 2021, Republicans have controlled the governor's office and both chambers of the state legislature in New Hampshire.
If convicted, Naseef Bryan could face between three and a half to seven years in New Hampshire State Prison and a fine of up to $4,000. It's important to note that only U.S. citizens are eligible to vote in federal elections, and each state has its own laws and regulations regarding voter eligibility and identification requirements.
Meanwhile, in a separate incident, Democratic Rep. Yvette Clarke of New York raised alarms when she suggested in a resurfaced video that she needed immigrants to bolster the numbers in her district for redistricting purposes.
In Texas, the discovery of potential illegal voting is not a new phenomenon. However, the scale of the investigation led by Attorney General Ken Paxton is significant, with investigations ongoing in Harris County, as well as Guadalupe, Cameron, and Eastland counties.
The Trump administration explored ways to verify citizenship status for voters, but these efforts were largely met with legal challenges and were not implemented as policy. The focus was on ensuring that only U.S. citizens were on voter rolls, but many states resisted federal efforts to provide citizenship data, citing privacy concerns and the potential for voter suppression.
U.S. states like New Hampshire and Texas have strict ID requirements to ensure only citizens can vote. These laws are part of broader efforts to verify citizenship, but the actual impact on non-citizens voting remains minimal, with most incidents being accidental rather than intentional.
In the case of Naseef Bryan, it's unclear what led to his decision to vote illegally, and further details about his grievances against government agencies are unclear due to the filings being "ambiguous and contain[ing] long stretches of writing about disparate topics." In one filing against USCIS, Bryan references maritime law and requests relief in the form of gold coins.
The issue of non-citizens voting continues to be a contentious topic in the United States, with some calling for stricter measures to prevent such incidents, while others argue that the focus should be on educating immigrants about their voting rights and responsibilities. The ongoing investigations in Texas and the case against Naseef Bryan in New Hampshire are likely to add fuel to this ongoing debate.
The ongoing investigation led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton into potential noncitizens who voted in the 2020 and 2022 election cycles aligns with the concern over noncitizens illegally voting, as evidenced by the case of Naseef Bryan, who is charged with wrongful voting in the 2024 presidential election. The debates around stricter measures to prevent non-citizens voting and the focus on educating immigrants about their voting rights and responsibilities continue to surface in politics, policy-and-legislation, and general-news. In the crime-and-justice sector, investigations into such incidents are vital to uphold the integrity of elections and maintain the rule of law.
