The San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office has filed felony charges against a non-citizen accused of illegally registering to vote and casting a ballot in California, becoming part of a widening federal and local effort to prosecute non-citizens who have voted in state elections.
District Attorney Dan Dow announced the charges Monday alongside First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, who is leading a federal initiative called Operation Protect the Vote. The San Luis Obispo defendant faces three felony counts: voter registration fraud, perjury, and fraudulent voting. According to Dow, the individual registered to vote in 2016 and then cast a ballot in the September 2021 gubernatorial recall election.
Although more than five years have passed since the alleged voting offense, Dow said a special legal allowance permits prosecution because the crime wasn’t discovered until October 23, 2026.
Dow said his office is also investigating 16 other non-citizens suspected of illegal voting in the county and is “nearing a charging decision” in those cases.
A statewide list, a local response
The San Luis Obispo case stems from a list of roughly 20,000 people the U.S. Department of Justice believes are likely non-citizens who have appeared on California voter rolls. Essayli said his office cannot prosecute all 20,000 cases alone and is instead partnering with county district attorneys across the state to pursue cases locally, since illegal voting by non-citizens violates both federal and California law.
“We don’t have the ability, the resources, to go and arrest all 20,000 people, so we are teaming up with our local law enforcement,” Essayli said at the press conference. “We’re teaming up with District Attorneys in the state of California, who are going to take on some of these cases in their own communities.”
Dow framed the effort as nonpartisan.
“Protecting the integrity of our elections is not a Republican or Democratic issue – it is an American and Californian responsibility. We appreciate our federal partners’ assistance and will independently investigate every credible allegation of illegal voting, follow the evidence, and enforce California law while safeguarding the rights of every accused person.”
Broader federal push
The San Luis Obispo case comes amid a larger wave of federal prosecutions. On Monday, federal prosecutors announced charges against six additional people from the same 20,000-name list, bringing the total number of federal defendants in Operation Protect the Vote to 34. Those six were accused of illegally registering to vote and voting in California, then lying about it on naturalization paperwork to become U.S. citizens. Five of the six were in custody at the time of the press conference, with the sixth being apprehended.
Essayli said the people on the list are legal immigrants going through the citizenship process, not people in the country without legal status. “Those are people who are voluntarily going through the immigration process. They’re trying to become a citizen. So, we’re not even talking about people in the country unlawfully,” he said.
Essayli also renewed a call for California election officials to work with federal authorities to verify the citizenship status of voters on the state’s rolls.
“There are thousands of suspected noncitizens on California’s voter rolls, and we renew our request for California to expeditiously work with us to verify the citizenship of those casting ballots in elections. Every illegal vote cast and counted cancels the legitimate vote of an American citizen. We will continue to arrest and prosecute those who threaten our democratic republic through unlawful vote dilution.”
The federal push followed comments last week from U.S. District Judge David Carter, who told Essayli that prosecuting non-citizen voters after the fact, rather than segregating suspect ballots before they are tallied, was the government’s available legal remedy. “If [the problem] is this big, you’ve got a remedy. For goodness sakes, go out and indict,” Carter said.
