Kansas mayor hit with criminal charges for allegedly voting as noncitizen in several elections

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Kansas leaders brought criminal charges Wednesday against Joe Ceballos, the mayor of a small city in rural Kansas, alleging he voted in several elections but is not a U.S. citizen.

Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab and Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, both elected Republicans, announced they filed six charges in Comanche County against Ceballos, a lawful permanent resident from Mexico, for voting in elections in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Ceballos is the mayor of Coldwater and previously served as a city councilman.

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States are required by law to have mechanisms in place to regularly clean voter registration lists, also known as voter rolls. The process includes using external databases to screen for noncitizens, which Kobach, a longtime immigration hawk and ally of President Donald Trump, said is not error-proof.

"Noncitizen voting is a real problem. It is not something that happens once in a decade. It is something that happens fairly frequently," Kobach said, echoing the broader sentiments of Republicans who say voter fraud is a pressing issue.

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach speaks at a rally with President Donald Trump at the Kansas Expocenter Oct. 6, 2018, in Topeka, Kan. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Ceballos' charges, which include perjury and voting without being qualified, according to the complaint reviewed by Fox News Digital, carry a maximum penalty of more than five years in prison. Ceballos did not respond to a request for comment.

Kobach, who previously served as Kansas secretary of state, has a long history of pushing for tougher immigration enforcement and stricter voter ID laws. In 2018, he lost a high-profile federal lawsuit after attempting to enforce a state law that required voters to provide physical documentation of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote.

A court found it exceeded the necessary requirements to confirm citizenship, in violation of federal election laws.

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A voter inserts an absentee voter ballot into a drop box. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)

The court said at the time that the state law could not "be justified by the scant evidence of noncitizen voter fraud before and after the law was passed."

Kobach did not detail how state officials came to learn that the mayor and former city councilman is allegedly a noncitizen, but he said investigators had "unassailable evidence" against Ceballos.

Boxes of signatures are displayed after a conference hosted by Citizens for Voter ID at the Nebraska Capitol building July 7, 2022, in Lincoln, Neb. (Noah Riffe/Lincoln Journal Star via AP)

Kobach said city officials, such as mayors, are also required by law to be U.S. citizens, which the attorney general said was "worth noting" but not a criminal offense. Ceballos was on the ballot for re-election on Election Day, but the official results have not been certified yet.

"In large part, our system right now is based on trust, trust that when the person signs the registration or signs the poll books saying that he is a qualified elector or that he is a United States citizen, that the person is telling the truth," Kobach said. "In this case, we allege that Mr. Ceballos violated that trust."

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Kobach and Schwab said they recently began taking advantage of a federal government database that helps cross-check voter rolls with immigration records that they expect will lead them to identify more voting violations.

Ceballos' first court appearance is Dec. 3. 

Ashley Oliver is a reporter for Fox News Digital and FOX Business, covering the Justice Department and legal affairs. Email story tips to [email protected].