Justice Department Announces Five Voter-Fraud Prosecutions Before the Midterms and Releases Video of Agents Arresting a Woman in Her Pajamas

On September 4, 2026, the Justice Department announced that prosecutors had brought five voting-related cases that week, and released footage of Homeland Security Investigations agents arresting one defendant, 30-year-old Katya Rodriguez, at a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania apartment. Four defendants are accused of voting as noncitizens in 2022 or 2024 in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and New Jersey; a fifth, a U.S. citizen, is charged with aiding his wife's alleged false registration. Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel called election fraud a top priority.

The announcement and arrest video come as the administration deploys DHS and USCIS personnel to hunt for noncitizen voters and has struggled to show fraud at scale. Election officials say noncitizen voting is rare and usually stems from administrative error. Five cases from prior elections are being presented as evidence of a systemic problem weeks before a federal election.

Charging documents in some cases were not yet public. Pennsylvania's Department of State said it was notified of the investigation in May 2025 and cooperated.