Local prosecutors charged a Mexican man currently serving as mayor of a small American city with unlawfully voting multiple times in U.S. elections.
Republican Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach on Wednesday charged Jose Ceballos, a Mexican national and mayor of Coldwater, Kansas, with three counts of voting without being qualified and three counts of election perjury, according to a press release from his office. The announcement marks the latest instance in which state officials allegedly caught a foreign national of voting, thanks in part to a database system bolstered by the Trump administration.
“In Kansas, it is against the law to vote if you are not a U.S. citizen,” Kobach said. “We allege that Mr. Ceballos did it multiple times.”
“Voting by noncitizens, including both legal and illegal aliens, is a very real problem,” the Kansas Attorney General continued. “It happens. Every time a noncitizen votes, it effectively cancels out a U.S. citizen’s vote.”
The charges were announced just one day after Ceballos was re-elected as mayor of Coldwater, Kansas, a city of a few hundred people in Comanche County.
While Ceballos is a legal permanent resident, he had not obtained American citizenship before allegedly registering to vote, according to prosecutors. The charges are nonperson felonies, and the Mexican national could face over five years in prison if convicted.
Kansas officials credited the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, an online service program administered by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), for helping to prevent foreign nationals from participating in elections.
“We now have tools, thanks to the current White House, that we haven’t had in over 10 years,” Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab stated, according to 12News, “that we can check through the SAVE program, to find out if folks end up on our voter rolls.”
“And they could be a legal resident, but they’re not a citizen. We want to make sure that gets clarified,” Schwab continued.
Earlier this year, USCIS updated SAVE and partnered with the Social Security Administration to ensure “a single, reliable source for verifying immigration status and U.S. citizenship,” according to a memo shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation at the time. Under the update, state and local officials can input Social Security numbers for verification of citizenship and crackdown on foreign nationals voting in U.S. elections.
In March, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14248, Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections, which aims to protect voting systems from fraud, systemic error and foreign influence.
State officials have directly credited the Trump administration’s work on SAVE, with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opening numerous cases against foreign nationals suspected of voting in elections.
“This situation is absolutely unacceptable and, sadly, no surprise given the years of lax voting security in the United States,” USCIS spokesperson Matthew Tragesser said Thursday to the DCNF. “From day one, the Trump administration has made strengthening the SAVE program a top priority so States can verify that only U.S. citizens are on the voter rolls.”
“USCIS is coordinating with our law enforcement partners on this case,” Tragesser continued. “This is just the beginning—SAVE is exposing bad actors and safeguarding the integrity of our elections like never before.”
