One Canadian permanent resident voted in Florida elections for years – and when officials sent him a letter about his citizenship status, he emailed the elections office back and admitted it.
Now Florida has 20 new voter fraud cases.
But Ron DeSantis wants to make sure no other state has to keep finding this out the hard way.
Florida Has Now Prosecuted More Than 100 Election Fraud Cases
Attorney General James Uthmeier and Governor Ron DeSantis stood at a Tallahassee podium Thursday and announced 20 new voter fraud charges spanning nine Florida counties.
https://twitter.com/Arkadalo/status/2102041159547629664?s=20
Sixteen defendants are foreign nationals accused of falsely claiming U.S. citizenship to register and vote.
Four more are convicted felons who voted while still on probation.
Read the names slowly.
Astrid Navarrete Quintana, 24, is a Mexican national living in Fort Myers on a permanent resident visa.
She lied about her citizenship on her voter registration, then walked into a polling place on Election Day and cast a ballot.
Your vote was canceled.
Kadian Johnson, 29, is a Jamaican national in Lehigh Acres who did the same thing – registered in September 2024, checked the citizen box, and voted on Election Day.
Another American's vote erased.
Manon Raux, 62, is a Canadian national in Naples who registered in September 2024 and voted early in October – also after falsely claiming citizenship.
Then there's Hollingsworth – also Canadian, also a permanent resident in Lake Suzy – who voted by mail in both the 2024 primary and the general election.
When Florida sent him a notice about his citizenship status, he didn't lawyer up.
He emailed the elections office and acknowledged he was a permanent resident who had been voting in Florida.
"Florida will not allow anyone to steal the vote of Americans at the ballot box," Uthmeier said Thursday.
The charges are third-degree felonies.
https://twitter.com/MichaelARothman/status/2102109987963342973?s=20
Most defendants face up to 10 years in prison.
Hollingsworth – for the written admission – faces up to 20.
DeSantis Is Done Keeping This Inside Florida
The same day DeSantis announced the fraud charges, he unveiled something bigger.
Florida is launching the Association of State and Local Election Officials – ASLEO – a national organization that will train election administrators and push Florida's election model into other states.
When Florida's November election concludes, Cord Byrd steps down as Secretary of State to lead the organization full-time.
Byrd didn't mince words about the mission.
"We want to take the Florida blueprint," Byrd said, "and take it nationwide."
That blueprint includes tightened vote-by-mail rules, stricter voter ID requirements, aggressive voter-roll maintenance, and the Office of Election Crimes and Security – the unit that just bagged these 20 defendants.
Since Uthmeier took office, Florida has now prosecuted more than 100 election fraud cases.
Every other state could be doing this – and isn't, because finding fraud creates political problems for the party that benefits from ignoring it.
ASLEO will establish state chapters to train election officials and advocate for election-integrity principles in federal law and policy.
DeSantis said the organization will run as a 501(c) nonprofit on private charitable contributions – no Florida taxpayer dollars.
The research institute Just Facts estimated that between 10% and 27% of non-citizen adults in the U.S. were illegally registered to vote heading into 2024, with up to 2.7 million illegal votes potentially cast nationally.
Florida was the only state systematically hunting that down.
https://twitter.com/KimKatieUSA/status/2103222151742734546?s=20
What Byrd is building changes that – state by state, chapter by chapter, cross-referencing voter rolls against federal immigration records until every state has the mechanism Florida built.
DeSantis said it plainly Thursday: Florida has "zero tolerance for voter fraud."
The Left will call it voter suppression.
And somewhere in Lehigh Acres, Kadian Johnson – who is not a U.S. citizen – voted in your election anyway.
That's the problem.
Sources:
- Kennedy Owens, "Uthmeier, DeSantis announce 20 new election fraud cases across Florida," Florida News, September 24, 2026.
- Fox 49 Staff, "DeSantis launches national election group to export Florida's voting rules across U.S.," Fox 49, September 24, 2026.
- Fred Lucas, "Gov. Ron DeSantis' Voter Fraud Office Nets 2 More Arrests," The Daily Signal, March 15, 2023.
- Ben Johnson, "Experts Predict Up to 2.7M Votes Will Be Cast by Illegal Immigrants," The Daily Signal, September 18, 2024.
- Florida Department of Law Enforcement, "FDLE arrests non-citizen for voter fraud," Press Release, January 24, 2025.
- Florida Department of State, Office of Election Crimes and Security, Election Integrity News Archive, dos.fl.gov.
