DOJ Indicts 10 on Noncitizen Voting Charges in Minnesota
Left 50%
Center 0%
Right 50%
1 left · 0 center · 1 right
What happened
The U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday that a federal grand jury had indicted 10 foreign nationals in Minnesota on charges of making false claims of U.S. citizenship to register to vote and of voting as noncitizens in the 2022 and 2024 general elections and in Minnesota’s August 2026 primary. The defendants are lawful permanent residents from Liberia, Lithuania, Ghana, Germany, Bosnia, Brazil, Canada, and South Africa; a false citizenship claim to vote is a felony carrying up to five years in prison, and noncitizen voting is a misdemeanor carrying up to one year. Attorney General Todd Blanche and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced the cases, which officials said form part of more than 90 voter-fraud charges since President Donald Trump returned to office, compared with 13 similar cases during the Biden administration. At least three of the Minnesota defendants have pleaded not guilty. The announcement was the sixth of its kind that month; since early September the department has charged at least 24 people across 10 states on related counts.
Sourcing check · Fully on the record · 2 articles
2 of 2 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report.
What these terms mean and how they're counted
- On the record · names a source 2 of 2
- On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: Todd Blanche, Markwayne Mullin, US Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota, Daniel Rosen and Steve Simon
- Primary evidence · cites a document or data 2 of 2
- Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: indictments, indictment
- Credits another outlet 0 of 2
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- Unnamed sources 0 of 2
- The main claim is attributed to people who are not identified: “people familiar with the matter”, “officials said”. The count is how many articles do this.
- How it developed
- When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Sep 30, 20:16 UTC by The Guardian, naming its source. First document in the first report, from The Guardian (indictments).
- Not counted 0
- Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
The same Minnesota defendants are lawful permanent residents in left-leaning coverage and undocumented immigrants in the New York Post, which changes the story from green-card holders who cannot vote into a tale of undocumented voting. Left-leaning coverage reports lawful permanent resident status for those charged. The Post called them "illegal aliens" from Brazil, Ghana, and Liberia. Daily Caller reports lawful permanent resident status too, so the clash is inside the right as well as across it.
Right-leaning coverage in the New York Post leads with eroded public trust and a surge in prosecutions. Left-leaning coverage leads by tying the charges to the president's fraud claims and then arguing noncitizen voting is rare. The Post cites more than 90 voter-fraud charges this term, a comparison the Guardian skips.
How did these noncitizens get registered to vote in Minnesota?
Bottom line
The New York Post told the Minnesota story as illegal-alien voting; the Guardian told it as green-card holders facing the same charges.
The receipts — 5 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters that illegal aliens from Brazil, Ghana and Liberia falsely claimed US citizenship to vote
- At least three of the Minnesota defendants have pleaded not guilty
- The Biden administration brought 13 similar cases during its four years in office
- In most of the recent similar federal cases the individuals charged are lawful permanent residents
- Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said the cases stand against roughly 8.5 million ballots cast in the state
The Left View
The Guardian frames the indictments as the Trump administration’s latest attempt to “heighten concerns about voter fraud,” stating there is “no evidence that fraudulent voting is a substantial problem” and that Trump and his allies have “repeatedly made unfounded allegations” that the electoral process is “rigged against them.” It cites the Heritage Foundation’s database of about 100 noncitizen-voting cases from 1982 to 2025 — 0.000008 percent of 1.3 billion presidential-election votes — and a September 2026 Center for Election Innovation & Research report that “sweeping allegations about possible noncitizen registration or voting appear to arise from misunderstandings, mischaracterizations, or outright fabrications about complex voter data.” The article says noncitizen voting is “rare and often associated with administrative errors,” noting New Jersey’s finding that a system error falsely registered more than 6,000 noncitizens of whom fewer than 340 voted, and Bipartisan Policy Center data that citizenship-verification tools return 0.04 percent of cases as noncitizen. It also highlights Mullin’s unevidenced remark that “We’ve had some trouble with some machines” and that he “Can’t say that it was fraud or not fraud,” and ties the prosecutions to what it calls Trump’s “false claims of election fraud,” mail-in restrictions, and a proof-of-citizenship push that “have been challenged in court.”
The Right View
Right-leaning outlets present the charges as confirmation that noncitizens “continue to register and vote in federal elections” despite “the media and Democrats denying it for decades,” and as enforcement needed to restore trust. Blanche said voter fraud “erodes the public’s trust in our electoral system” and that the department must make sure “the only people voting in an election in the United States are American citizens who are eligible to vote”; U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen called voting “a privilege of American citizenship,” and Blanche said enforcing the ban “should not be a partisan concept.” Officials contrasted more than 90 voter-fraud cases — including 50 in five weeks — and Homeland Security’s more than 1,600 investigations, 100 administrative arrests, and 10 convictions with 13 similar cases under Biden. White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said the message to “aliens who vote” is “we will find you, arrest you, and you will face the consequences including deportation.” The New York Post described the Minnesota defendants as “illegal aliens”; the Daily Caller reported they hold lawful permanent resident status. Coverage links the cases to Trump’s push for the SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections.
Our Take (balanced)
The left’s strongest argument is scale: Heritage’s roughly 100 cases from 1982 to 2025, a 0.04 percent noncitizen flag rate on verification tools, New Jersey’s error-driven false registrations with fewer than 340 actual votes, and Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon’s comparison of these 10 charges with roughly 8.5 million ballots all support the claim that noncitizen voting is “vanishingly rare” and often an administrative mistake. The right’s strongest argument is that rarity does not make the conduct lawful or trivial: officials report a jump from 13 similar cases under Biden to more than 90 now, DHS cites more than 1,600 investigations, and Blanche’s statement that elections are “often decided by a small number of votes” is the rationale for treating each illegal ballot as consequential. The central unresolved tension is whether this small set of prosecutions of lawful permanent residents demonstrates a denied, systemic vulnerability in U.S. elections, or whether those same small numbers show that the administration is inflating isolated crimes into a broader crisis of election integrity.
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