The San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office has filed three felony charges against a noncitizen accused of registering to vote and casting a ballot, becoming one of the first county-level prosecutions tied to a broader federal effort targeting noncitizen voting in California.
District Attorney Dan Dow announced the charges — voter registration fraud, perjury and fraudulent voting — at a Monday press conference alongside First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli. Prosecutors allege the defendant registered to vote in 2016 and cast a ballot in the September 2021 gubernatorial recall election. Although that alleged offense occurred more than five years ago, Dow said a special legal allegation permits prosecution because the crime was not discovered until October 23, 2026.
Dow said his office is investigating 16 additional noncitizens and is “nearing a charging decision” in those cases.
“Protecting the integrity of our elections is not a Republican or Democratic issue – it is an American and Californian responsibility,” Dow said. “We appreciate our federal partners’ assistance and will independently investigate every credible allegation of illegal voting, follow the evidence, and enforce California law while safeguarding the rights of every accused person.”
Part of a Statewide Federal Push
The San Luis Obispo case is tied to Operation Protect the Vote, a Justice Department initiative that has now charged 34 defendants across California. All of them appeared on a list of roughly 20,000 people the DOJ has identified as likely noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls.
The operation accelerated after U.S. District Judge David Carter told Essayli last week that prosecution after the fact was the government’s available remedy, since federal authorities cannot force California to segregate and verify ballots from suspected noncitizens before they’re counted. Carter told Essayli: “You have the right to bring that indictment against them, which is our traditional remedy, which has an absolute chilling effect… If [the problem] is this big, you’ve got a remedy. For goodness sakes, go out and indict.”
On day one of the operation, federal prosecutors in all four of California’s federal judicial districts charged 28 lawful permanent residents from the list with illegally registering to vote and, in most cases, actually voting. On Monday, Essayli announced six additional federal charges, bringing the statewide federal total to 34. Five of the six new defendants were in custody at the time of the press conference, with the sixth being apprehended.
Essayli said his office lacks the resources to pursue all 20,000 names alone and is now recruiting county district attorneys to prosecute cases locally under state law, which separately prohibits noncitizen voting.
“We don’t have the resources to go and arrest all 20,000 people, so we are teaming up with our local law enforcement — teaming up with District Attorneys in the state of California, who are going to take on some of these cases in their own communities,” Essayli said. “Not only is it against federal law for non-citizens to vote, it’s also against state law.”
Essayli emphasized that those charged are legal residents going through the naturalization process, not people who entered the country unlawfully. “Those are legal immigrants. Those are people who are voluntarily going through the immigration process. They’re trying to become a citizen. So, we’re not even talking about people in the country unlawfully,” he said.
Essayli renewed his call for California election officials to cooperate with federal efforts to verify voter citizenship. “Every illegal vote cast and counted cancels the legitimate vote of an American citizen. We will continue to arrest and prosecute those who threaten our democratic republic through unlawful vote dilution,” he said.
