On October 29, 2026, five days before the midterms, the Justice Department announced charges against 18 more people accused of illegally registering or voting in North Carolina, bringing the number charged in the state this year to 30. Nine were charged in the Eastern District, five in the Middle and four in the Western. Seventeen are described as lawful permanent residents and one is accused of being in the country illegally, the Washington Examiner reported.
An earlier batch came about two weeks before, on the first day of early voting, according to NC Newsline. Outlets count it differently: NC Newsline says 10 people, WRAL says a dozen. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said, “If you're not an American citizen, you cannot vote in our federal elections.” Noncitizen voting is a crime and these are lawful prosecutions of accusations not yet proven. What this entry records is their timing and scale during an election.
WRAL reported that such charges could help the administration argue that noncitizens will cast midterm votes, “even though the Justice Department's own investigations have shown that voting by noncitizens is extremely rare.” Hilary Harris Klein, a voting rights attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, said, “They could have raised these issues well before the election.” She added, “It really creates an environment of fear around elections.” Her group called the cases a “miniscule percentage” of the state's more than 7.9 million registered voters, NC Newsline reported.
The state's elections chief gave a different account of the timing. Sam Hayes, who leads the State Board of Elections, told WRAL the cases came from state referrals, that his office started looking in April and was delayed by litigation over the federal SAVE database, and that it sent the FBI more names than the 30 charged. He also said some people on the lists may have been added by mistake at the DMV. One earlier defendant, 71, told WRAL he voted for Trump and thought he was a citizen; prosecutors allege he is Canadian.
The Examiner, citing Justice Department figures, counted roughly 160 noncitizens charged nationwide with voting and registration offenses from January 2025 through September 2026, and a separate batch of 48 announced earlier that week. The department is also sending monitors to Wake, Alamance and Mecklenburg counties, part of a goal of 1,000 nationwide, WRAL reported (see DOJ Plans to Send 1,000 Election Monitors in November, 'the Biggest DOJ Election Observer Effort in History'). The charges follow the California arrests in The Justice Department Charges 28 Green Card Holders in California, Saying All Are on Its 20,000-Name Ballot List. White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said, “President Trump has done more than any other president to ensure we have free and fair elections.”