Florida Charges 20 With Illegal Voting: 16 Noncitizens and 4 People on Felony Probation

Photo: Office of the Attorney General of Florida, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, whose office announced the charges, in his 2025 official portrait.

Florida’s Office of Statewide Prosecution has charged 20 people in a statewide election-integrity operation, Attorney General James Uthmeier announced Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, alongside Gov. Ron DeSantis. The defendants are accused of illegal voting in Florida elections, including the 2024 general election. They are charged, not convicted, and are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.

What the state says happened

According to the Attorney General’s release, the Office of Statewide Prosecution — working with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Department of State’s Office of Election Crimes and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — is “charging 16 non-citizens who registered by falsely claiming United States citizenship and then voted, and 4 convicted felons who registered and voted while still on probation.” The cases originated with referrals from the Office of Election Crimes and county supervisors of elections after immigration-status reviews, including checks against federal databases, flagged registered voters who were not U.S. citizens. FDLE then gathered registration applications, poll-book signatures or vote-by-mail certificates, and post-election ineligibility notices; USCIS “was instrumental in confirming non-citizen status.” The release says several defendants later signed forms admitting they are not citizens. The charges span nine counties: Brevard, Collier, Columbia, DeSoto, Hillsborough, Lee, Marion, Okeechobee and Polk.

Who is charged

The state is charging 20 people in total: 16 noncitizens accused of falsely claiming U.S. citizenship on voter-registration forms before voting, and 4 people with felony convictions accused of voting while still on probation. The release lists 12 defendants as “arrested in this operation so far” — 11 noncitizens and one man on felony probation, ranging in age from 24 to 74. Some of those listed had been registered for years, with registrations dating to 1995, 2002 and 2008; one is accused of voting in seven general elections between 2004 and 2024.

The charges and penalties

The release names five charges: Unqualified Noncitizen Electors Willfully Voting, False Swearing, Unqualified Electors Willfully Voting, Voting by a Non-Citizen Elector, and False Affirmation. The release says: “Each charged offense is a third-degree felony.” Under Florida law, a third-degree felony carries a prison term of up to five years per count (Fla. Stat. §775.082). The release states: “If convicted as charged, most of the defendants face up to 10 years in the Florida Department of Corrections.” One defendant faces up to 20 years and another up to 15, it says — figures that add up the five-year maximum for each count. Under Florida law, sentences for offenses charged together are served at the same time unless a judge orders them served one after another.

The scale

Florida’s Division of Elections reported 13,949,168 registered voters and 11,004,209 ballots cast in the November 2024 general election, a turnout of 78.9%. For scale, 20 people are charged, against about 11 million ballots cast in 2024 alone; the release says some defendants are also accused of voting in earlier elections.

The 2022 precedent

This is not Florida’s first statewide voter-fraud sweep. In August 2022, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that the newly created Office of Election Crimes and Security had arrested 20 people accused of voting illegally in the 2020 election despite murder or felony sex-offense convictions, CBS News Miami reported. The outlet reported in December 2022 that at least three of those cases had been dismissed because the Office of Statewide Prosecution lacked jurisdiction: Florida law lets that office prosecute only offenses that occur in two or more judicial circuits. The Attorney General’s Thursday release does not address whether the new cases are structured to avoid that same problem.

What’s next

The Attorney General’s office says the investigation “remains active and ongoing” and that “additional charges and arrests are expected.” The release also points to a broader enforcement tally: since Gov. DeSantis signed SB 524, creating the Office of Election Crimes at the Department of State, Florida has brought more than 100 election-fraud-related prosecutions, with more than half of those beginning since Uthmeier took office. As with the 20 defendants charged Thursday, anyone charged in future cases will be presumed innocent unless convicted in court.