Ryan Raybould, U.S. attorney for Northern District of Texas, center, points out a reporter during a news conference, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026, to announce results related to federal election integrity efforts, in Fort Worth.
Chitose Suzuki/The Dallas Morning News
Tarrant County District Attorney Phil Sorrells, right, speaks as Ryan Raybould, U.S. attorney for Northern District of Texas listens during a news conference, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026, to announce results related to federal election integrity efforts, in Fort Worth.
Chitose Suzuki/The Dallas Morning News
Ryan Raybould, U.S. attorney for Northern District of Texas, speaks during a news conference, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026, to announce results related to federal election integrity efforts, in Fort Worth.
Chitose Suzuki/The Dallas Morning News
Federal prosecutors announced charges Tuesday against seven noncitizens in North Texas accused of illegally voting or making false statements about citizenship and voting, while Tarrant County authorities announced two separate state voter fraud indictments.
Four of the federal defendants are accused of voting in the November 2024 election, according to federal charging documents. Two others allegedly submitted provisional ballots in Tarrant County that election officials rejected. Prosecutors said submitting those ballots was still unlawful.
A seventh defendant allegedly registered to vote in 2017 and voted in the 2018 general election. Prosecutors said the five-year statute of limitations barred a charge over that vote. The defendant instead is accused of making false statements on a 2026 naturalization application about whether the person had claimed U.S. citizenship, registered to vote or voted.
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Six of the seven defendants are lawful permanent residents, prosecutors said. The other is a Mexican national whom prosecutors said had been ordered deported in July.
Six defendants were indicted Sept. 10 and another was charged by criminal complaint the next day. All seven had been arrested or surrendered by Tuesday morning, U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould, whose Northern District of Texas office brought the cases, said during a news conference Tuesday in Fort Worth.
Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Phil Sorrells said a county grand jury separately indicted two people on state voter fraud charges. Warrants had been issued for both, but neither had been arrested Tuesday afternoon. Authorities did not identify them.
Most of the federal cases involve Tarrant County.
One defendant is accused of voting early in Dallas County in 2024 and falsely claiming U.S. citizenship on a Texas driver’s license application. Prosecutors said that defendant previously pleaded guilty in a federal passport case.
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Asked how the defendants were allegedly able to register or vote, Raybould said investigators found false claims of U.S. citizenship on voter registration forms, provisional voter affidavits and, in some cases, driver’s license applications.
“It’s the actual false certification on the form,” Raybould said.
Prosecutors said investigators reviewed immigration records and other government documents and interviewed witnesses and defendants to determine whether alleged violations were intentional.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office said some investigations began with referrals from the Texas secretary of state following the 2024 general election.
Noncitizen voting is already illegal in federal elections. Election officials have repeatedly said there is no evidence that it occurs on a widespread basis, and previous reporting by The Dallas Morning News has described such incidents as extremely rare.
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Election integrity has become a prominent Republican policy priority.
The Republican National Committee says its platform includes ensuring election integrity and has pursued litigation and other efforts aimed at noncitizen voting. Texas also requires identification for in-person voting and limits mail voting to people who meet specific eligibility requirements rather than allowing no-excuse voting by mail.
Authorities said they did not determine which candidates received the votes.
“We don’t care who that person voted for,” Raybould said. “That’s not our focus.”
Asked what the cases showed about the prevalence of noncitizen voting, Raybould said his office has other investigations underway but declined to say how many suspected violations are under review.
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“One vote, one instance of voter fraud, is a problem,” he said.
Tarrant County recorded 828,544 participating voters among 1,299,023 registered voters in the November 2024 general election, according to official county results.
Raybould also cited a separate case involving a Mexican citizen accused of using a U.S. citizen’s identity to vote in Tarrant County in 2024. The man was sentenced last week to 36 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to four felony counts involving identity theft, voter fraud and passport fraud.
The seven newly charged federal defendants and the two people indicted in Tarrant County are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
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