Illegal immigrants from Africa, Ukraine, India and China are voting in US elections — here’s how they’re doing it
'The reality is aliens are voting in US elections.'
A Mauritanian illegal immigrant marked for deportation since 2002 has continued to live in the US and is a registered Democrat who voted in every election since 2008, authorities claim.
Mahady Sacko, 50, who goes by the nickname “Sacko Scorpion,” was busted last week in Philadelphia for allegedly falsely claiming citizenship to cast a 2024 ballot.
He was picked up in a joint operation between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the FBI who charge he “falsely represented that he was a US citizen in order to vote and register to vote” in the last preidential election, according to a press release.
Sacko denied the charges when I called him, claiming: “Everything is a lie! They are lying about me!” before hanging up. He has yet to enter a plea in his case.
As the issue of election security ramps up in Congress with the SAVE act, Sacko’s arrest was one of nearly a dozen uncovered of non-citizens allegedly voting in US elections, sometimes for decades, with many remaining listed as active voters on state rolls, even after their convictions.
“The reality is aliens are voting in American elections,” J. Christian Adams, president of Public Interest Legal Foundation, who has spent decades working on election integrity told me, noting no one is quite sure how widespread the problem is.
There were about 14 million people who are in the country legally but who are not citizens in 2023, according to the Pew Research center. While they may have work permits and visas, they can’t vote.
“It’s way worse than the left says, but it’s way better than some others say,” he added.
Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state, stands out for disastrous alien voter registration, said Adams. The Keystone State has admitted a glitch in its “motor voter” program, which registers voters at the DMV, inadvertently has allowed approximately 100,000 non-citizens to register to vote, though some state officials dispute this number.
Another Pennsylvania voter, Indian citizen Kaushalkumar Patel, 47, of Allentown will stand trial this month for allegedly voting illegally in the 2020 election in Penn.
Patel’s lawyer Philip Steinberg previously said he’s waiting for more information from the goverment laying out their case against Patel, saying in a statement: “Mr. Patel has lived a law abiding life in the United States for over 20 years. He works, pays his taxes and is an active participant in his community. He is also the proud father of two young daughters.”
On March 6, Canadian Denis Bouchard, 70, pleaded guilty to two counts of making false claims he was a US citizen to vote in 2022 and 2024 elections in North Carolina and faces ten years in prison.
A man by the same name and age had voted in every election since 2004 and was not registered with a political party. That man was removed from voter rolls in that state after Bouchard’s conviction.
In one shocking case, Chinese national Haoxiang Gao, 19, who was a student at the University of Michigan, was charged on June 3 last year with illegally voting in the 2024 election, but fled to China before he could face justice.
At arraignment Gao surrendered his Chinese passport to the judge but then boarded a flight from Detroit to Shanghai using another passport with a different serial number, according to the FBI. Gao remains wanted in the US, which does not have an extradition treaty with China.
Gao is still registered as an active voter in Michigan.
An October 2025 sweep in Arkansas picked up Cecilia Casellanos, 59, a Cuban national and registered Democrat who had a pending order of removal by immigration enforcement dating back to 1999. Casellanos also had three prior felony convictions in New York for Grand Larceny and Attempted Forgery, according to the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
She pleaded guilty to perjury and voter fraud on Jan. 13.
In October, Arkansas also nabbed Zlata Risley, 50, of Kazakhstan who had registered as a Republican; and Nigerian citizen Chi Baum, 59, of no party affiliation. Both were lawful US residents, but not citizens, who illegally voted in the 2024 election, officials said.Risley pleaded guilty and recieved probation. Details of Baum’s case were not immediately available.
In Florida, two Ukrainian women — mom Svitlana Demydenko, 53, and daughter Yelyzaveta Demydenko, 22, both registered Democrats — cast ballots in the 2024 general election after coming to the US in 2021 on nonimmigrant visas, according to the US Attorney’s Office Southern District of Florida.
They were both arrested last April, they have pleaded not guilty and their case is set for trial later in 2026.
dams said the main problem is aliens being invited to register to vote, usually through the mail, at the DMV or via third-party groups.
“At times, it’s an organic process of aliens getting sucked in unwittingly. Maybe they’d been whipping down Modelos [beers] at a festival and they’re doing some guy a favor who is in their face with a clipboard. Or, they’re at the DMV and get these pop-up windows asking them to register. They think, ‘I must be allowed.’ ”
He added: “I wish it were a conspiracy plot because it would be easier to bust. This is systemic failure.”
Illegal voters span the political spectrum. In Upstate New York, Iraqi national Akeel Abdul Jamiel, 45, had registered with the Conservative Party, had written pro-Trump screeds and in 2019 tried to sue then-New York City mayor Bill de Blasio over the negative impact of illegal immigration on his livelihood, claiming the US was “under invasion.”
Jamiel was charged last April with illegally voting in the 2020 election. He has yet to enter a plea and could face a year in prison and up to $100,000 fine if convicted.
Jamaican national Jacqueline Dianne Wallace, 52, who had been in the US illegally for over 15 years, registered online from a community college computer network as a Republican to vote in Florida and cast a ballot in the 2024 presidential primary, officials claim. Her case is currently pending.
If convicted, she faces five years in the clink.
The Republican-backed SAVE America Act would mandate proof of US citizenship — such as a passport, birth certificate, or enhanced driver’s license — to register to vote in federal elections, but it’s currently languishing in the Senate, lacking the 60 votes required to overcome a Democrat filibuster.
Texas Rep. Chip Roy, who introduced the SAVE Act to the House, where it passed, said he agrees with President Trump that passing this bill should be Republicans’ “top priority.”
“Americans want voter ID and the guarantee that only citizens are voting in our elections. The House has done its job, now it’s time for the Senate to show up to work,” he told me in a statement.
“Senators should stand up and defend their positions. If Democrats want to block protections ensuring only citizens vote, they should have to explain that to the American people,” he added.
Democrats have called non-citizen voting a “myth” and blasted the SAVE Act as “extremist white supremacist agenda” and “Jim Crow 2.0.”
President Trump has escalated pressure on the Senate by threatening he’ll refuse to sign any other bills until it’s passed.
Utah Senator Mike Lee, who co-sponsored the SAVE Act in the Senate, told me in a statement he wants voters to keep the pressure up to get the bill passed.
“Every few weeks, we learn that, ‘the thing that never happens,’ has happened again,” he said referring to illegal voting. “In tight down-ballot races, even hundreds of illegal votes can swing an election, and every illegal vote cast is an attack on a legitimate vote cast by a real citizen.”
Ilustrating that point, On Friday, after a recount, Boca Raton, Florida’s new mayor won by just five votes, flipping the mayorship to Democrat in a Republican stronghold.
“It may surprise many Americans to learn that the Supreme Court — wrongly, in my view — has interpreted the law to forbid states from checking citizenship for voter registration. The SAVE America Act would reverse this situation,” Lee added, speaking about a 2013 decision that required only a sworn affirmation of citizenship for voter registration.
Sen. Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) announced the Senate will debate the SAVE Act next week but stated they lack the votes to pass it.
Polling shows the SAVE Act is extremely popular with voters, getting over 70% support, with even half of Democrats in favor.
This story originally appeared in the New York Post on March 16, 2026.
It's very simple, it takes 60 votes to pass a bill in the Senate and Republicans don't have them. It's not going to pass the Senate, not now, not ever.
Why is Thune dragging his feet on this?