CNN
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Michigan prosecutors have charged a Chinese citizen with voter fraud and perjury after he allegedly voted in the 2024 election, authorities announced Wednesday.

Sources familiar with the matter told CNN that the 19-year-old Chinese man who allegedly voted is a student who lives in Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan. Authorities said the man was not a U.S. citizen and therefore could not vote in federal elections.

The announcement from Michigan’s secretary of state and attorney general, along with local prosecutors in Ann Arbor, comes as former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies spread concerns on mass voting by non-citizens. Experts say Illegal non-citizen voting is extremely rare, and when it does occur, it is usually detected quickly.

“Investigations in several states and nationally have found no evidence of large numbers of noncitizens registering to vote. It is even less common for a non-citizen to vote. When this happens, we take it extremely seriously,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Washtenaw County District Attorney Eli Savit, both Democrats, said in a statement.

They also stated that “any non-citizen who attempts to vote fraudulently in Michigan will face great risk and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Michigan investigators are still investigating whether this was an isolated incident, an accident or possibly an attempt at Chinese interference in the 2024 election, and federal investigators are also looking into the case, a source close to the matter told CNN.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is also a Democrat, said in a statement statement that his office has launched an “independent, parallel investigation” into the situation.

Authorities have not identified the Chinese student accused of voting in the election. He faces one count of illegally attempting to vote and one count of perjury – both felonies.

It appears that the student’s vote cannot be overturned after the fact and will be counted.

Washtenaw County Clerk Lawrence Kestenbaum told CNN that ballots cannot be retrieved once they go through the tabulator. Unlike mail voting, ballots cast at in-person polling locations do not contain any identifying information about the individual voter, making it impossible to determine which one belonged to the student, Kestenbaum said.

“There’s a box of ballots under the tabulator and all the ballots — they all look the same … there’s no way to go back and undo it,” Kestenbaum said in an interview.

Experts said it was standard election procedure aimed at maintaining secrecy.

“An in-person ballot is placed in a tabulator or ballot box, mixed with other ballots. It’s about preserving secrecy, so you can’t go into the ballot later and confirm who a particular pastor voted for,” said David Becker, former Justice Department voting rights official and founder from the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research.

After the charges were announced, Michigan GOP Agents And state legislators took advantage of the news to criticize Democrats for not requiring proof of citizenship to vote.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, an election law expert at Stetson University, said that was one of the “disadvantages” of the secret ballot, which was instituted to prevent vote buying.

Earlier in U.S. history, different colored ballots were sometimes used for different political parties, making it easier to interfere in the process. The secret ballot for in-person votes ensures that “no one can trace a particular vote back to a particular voter,” Torres-Spelliscy said.

“It’s basically impossible to remove a miscast ballot because it looks like every other ballot cast by an eligible voter,” said Torres-Spelliscy, a CNN contributor, adding that the Chinese national who voted in Michigan “swore under penalty of perjury that he was a U.S. citizen, which was why poll workers were giving him a ballot.