A Colombian citizen used a stolen American’s name, birthdate and Social Security number to vote in U.S. elections for more than two decades before anyone caught him.
Quick Take
- Carlos Felipe Jaramillo Grajales, 55, of Jacksonville, was sentenced to three years in federal prison.
- He pleaded guilty to passport fraud, aggravated identity theft, and falsely claiming U.S. citizenship to vote.
- He used a stolen citizen’s identity for over 20 years to get a passport, a driver’s license, and cast ballots.
- The case is one of four brought by the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force.
- Research shows confirmed noncitizen voting cases remain extremely rare across U.S. elections.
A Two-Decade Deception Ends in Prison
U.S. District Judge Harvey E. Schlesinger sentenced Jaramillo Grajales this week after he admitted to years of fraud. Federal prosecutors in the Middle District of Florida say he took over the identity of a real American citizen and used it to build a false life in Jacksonville. That stolen name let him get official documents no immigrant without legal status could otherwise obtain.
Court records show the scheme lasted more than 20 years. During that time, Jaramillo Grajales used the stolen name, birth date, and Social Security number to apply for a U.S. passport and a driver’s license. He also claimed U.S. citizenship in order to register and vote in elections, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Charges Reflect a Long List of Federal Crimes
Jaramillo Grajales pleaded guilty to four separate federal charges. These include passport fraud, aggravated identity theft, falsely claiming a Social Security number as his own, and falsely claiming U.S. citizenship to vote in an election. U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe’s office announced the case alongside three other prosecutions tied to the same task force.
The Justice Department created its Election Threats Task Force to pursue cases involving fraud, identity theft, and false citizenship claims connected to voting. Officials say this Florida case shows how a single stolen identity can quietly power years of illegal activity, from government paperwork to ballot access, without drawing attention from authorities.
How Common Is Noncitizen Voting, Really?
This case is real and the guilty plea is not in dispute. But research on noncitizen voting nationwide paints a very different picture than one dramatic case might suggest. The Brennan Center for Justice found incident rates for voter fraud in closely studied elections between 0.00004% and 0.0009%, based on reviews of confirmed cases rather than allegations.
A separate review of the Heritage Foundation’s widely cited fraud database found only 68 total documented cases of noncitizen voting going back to the 1980s, out of thousands of entries tracked overall. Federal data from an earlier Justice Department initiative found just 14 convictions of noncitizens for voting fraud in a three-year stretch ending in 2005.
That gap matters for how Americans understand cases like this one. A single, decades-long fraud is serious and deserves prosecution. But experts who study election systems say individual cases, however striking, do not by themselves prove that noncitizen voting happens at a scale large enough to swing outcomes.
What the Case Signals for Election Security
For voters worried about election integrity, this case confirms that gaps exist in how citizenship and identity get verified over time. A stolen identity survived multiple layers of government scrutiny, including passport applications and voter registration checks, for more than 20 years before it unraveled. That failure crosses political lines and speaks to systems many Americans already distrust.
At the same time, the case does not establish a widespread pattern of illegal voting by noncitizens. It shows one person exploited weak identity verification for a long time, and federal investigators eventually closed the gap. The three-year sentence closes this individual case, even as broader questions about verification systems remain unresolved.
Sources:
redstate.com, justice.gov, alipac.us, tradersunion.com, uscis.gov
