New Jersey prosecutors charge four over illegal voting, false citizenship claims

Federal prosecutors in New Jersey charged four residents after saying they registered and voted while not U.S. citizens, then later made false statements in immigration filings to hide it. The case lands in the most sensitive corner of election administration: not just whether an ineligible ballot was cast, but whether later federal forms were used to obscure it.

The allegations cover voting between 2020 and 2024, a span that included two presidential elections and one midterm. Prosecutors said the defendants were noncitizens when they registered, falsely certified that they were U.S. citizens on voter-registration forms, and later denied having voted when they filed N-400 naturalization applications and were interviewed under oath. The charges range from illegal voting in a federal election to false statements on citizenship and naturalization documents, meaning the government must prove both the voting conduct and the alleged effort to conceal it during the immigration process.

A similar New Jersey federal case earlier this year showed how those allegations can develop into criminal charges. On January 8, 2026, the Justice Department said two Bergen County men, Muhammad Muzammal and Muhammad Shakeel, were indicted for illegally voting in the November 2020 general election and making false statements while applying for U.S. citizenship. Prosecutors said both men were noncitizens when they registered to vote, falsely certified citizenship on registration forms, and later denied voting on naturalization applications. Shakeel was scheduled for an initial appearance on January 21 in Trenton, while Muzammal’s appearance was to be scheduled later in Camden. The department said the maximum penalty for voting by an alien in a federal election is one year in prison.

The New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office said its Election Integrity Task Force, announced on April 29, 2025, worked with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies on voter-registration fraud, fraudulent ballots, noncitizen voting, multiple voting, and foreign interference. Robert Frazer, appointed U.S. attorney on March 23, 2026, inherited that machinery after a months-long leadership dispute over the office ended with a court appointment.

The scale of the problem remains limited in the available evidence. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission describes American election administration as decentralized, with multiple layers of state and local control. Brennan Center research cited by prosecutors found that in 42 jurisdictions covering 23.5 million votes in the 2016 general election, officials referred an estimated 30 suspected incidents of noncitizen voting for investigation or prosecution. New Jersey prosecutors have also pursued other election cases recently, including a February 1, 2024 charge against Craig Callaway in a fraudulent mail-in ballot scheme tied to the November 8, 2022, general election. The latest charges show that safeguards can detect alleged violations, but they do not suggest that the system is awash in fraud.