Nessel announces charges against six people for non-citizen fraudulent voting

Attorney General Dana Nessel is charging five non-citizens who are alleged to have voted in Michigan’s 2024 November general election and one U.S. citizen alleged to have registered their non-citizen spouse to vote.

Following an audit, the Department of State referred 16 cases of suspected non-citizen voting in the 2024 November election to the Department of Attorney General throughout 2025. In 2026, an additional 22 cases have been referred to the attorney general concerning suspected non-citizen voting or related conduct in elections spanning from 2009 to 2025.

Six cases have resulted in criminal charges, 10 have been closed without charges and 22 remain under review, a press release from the attorney general’s office said.

“In my office, we’ve always taken election crimes seriously, and prosecute attacks on our voting systems to the fullest extent of the law,” Nessel said in a statement. “We’re upholding election integrity by investigating all claims of non-citizen voters, as rare as they are, and holding bad actors accountable when they refuse to abide by the laws that keep our elections safe and secure. These charges reflect the severity of the allegations, the sanctity of our democracy, and the tremendous consequences of voting illegally – whether that’s done to try and ‘test’ security measures or to make an unlawful vote count.”

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson told reporters in Muskegon that her office welcomed the charges because they “show the system works.”

“They were a result of our investigation as well, in partnership with the attorney general’s office, and really emphasize and underscore, at a time when non-citizen voting is thrown around to make people afraid or sow seeds of doubt about our elections, that this is an example that the process works,” she said.

Benson underscored that the amount of voter fraud was miniscule compared to the total number of people who cast a ballot in the 2024 election.

“When there are a handful of irregularities, we find them, we prosecute them, we ensure justice is done,” she said. “That’s the system working, and that is why citizens can have rightly placed faith in the security of our elections.”

Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini, the Republican candidate for secretary of state, praised Nessel in a statement, saying he felt vindicated after he investigation into non-citizens that he found in the jury pool who were also in the Qualified Voter File.

“I am proud of the Democrats who stand with me in my county in desiring to increase transparency toward our election process,” he said. “Good elections are a non-partisan topic, and both parties need to take this seriously. This is just the beginning of what I am uncovering. This is not a small matter. This is an infrastructure issue that needs to be fixed. By doing our job, we are exposing things in the system that we should not be covering up.”

He criticized Benson for “overlooking” the problem.

“How do we fix this? By the leaders we elect in Lansing showing up for work every single day, for every single meeting, overseeing every detail on a regular, consistent basis,” he said.“It’s important for elected leaders to work hard for the people we serve, and to be transparent when a problem presents itself. We must work consistently to make sure the system runs better. It’s obvious the current administration thought it better to cover up the issue with name calling while looking the other way.”

Other Republicans also had criticisms of Benson.

“Jocelyn Benson has lied again and again about non-citizens voting in Michigan’s elections,” said Gabe Butzke, a spokesperson for Michigan Forward Network. “It should be easy to vote and hard to cheat, but Benson has shown she has no interest in protecting the integrity of our elections.”

Rep. Rachelle Smit, R-Martin, chair of the House Elections Integrity Committee, said the charges underscored the need for Congress to pass the SAVE Act, and criticized Democrats inaction.

“How many non-citizens will have to vote in our elections before Democrats recognize it as the crisis it is? I truly believe Michigan is the epicenter of the problem. We have a Democrat secretary of state self-reporting that non-citizens voted under her leadership and then a Democrat Attorney General charging those non-citizens because the crimes were too blatant to ignore. Can you imagine how many more non-citizens we would find voting in our elections if we had a serious attorney general or secretary of state who wouldn’t treat the crisis like a non-issue?” she said in a statement. “The charges filed today are just the tip of the iceberg, and further underscore exactly why the U.S. Senate must approve the SAVE Act to safeguard our elections and ensure only U.S. citizens are voting in our elections. We must remember that these are just the cases where the individual voting was caught. How many others are doing the exact same thing and just escaping the law?”

Benson and other Democrats have emphasized the number of non-citizen voting is low compared to the total votes. Opponents of the proposal to require proof of citizenship to vote have said it would lead to many more eligible voters not participating.

Nessel charged Michael Akioya, 39, of Oak Park with false statement on an absent voter ballot application and false statement on an absentee ballot return envelope. He is a lawful permanent resident, though he is not an American citizen. Akioya allegedly registered to vote in 2016 with an Inkster address and voted in the 2024 general election by absentee ballot.

The attorney general’s office also charged Kimberley DiDonato, 60, of Rose Township, with election forgery and using a computer to commit a crime. DiDonato is an American citizen married to a lawful permanent resident. Allegedly, she posed as her husband, falsely claimed he was an American citizen, provided her husband’s identifying information and registered him to vote online. Upon receiving a voter registration card in her husband’s name, DiDonato allegedly contacted her local clerk to cancel the registration in May 2024. DiDonato claimed her intent was to test the registration system for vulnerabilities, according to a press release from the attorney general’s office.

Nessel also charged Alondra Harker, 26, of Three Rivers, with fraudulent registration. She is a limited term alien resident, and it is alleged she registered and voted in-person in the 2024 general election.

Harumi Michael, 60, of Wolverine Lake, was also charged with two counts of election law forgery, one count of unqualified elector attempting to vote and one count of a false statement on voter registration. Michael is a lawful permanent resident, and it is alleged he registered to vote in 2024 and voted in-person in the 2024 general election in Commerce Township.

Robert Piva, 67, was charged with election law perjury, unqualified elector attempting to vote and fraudulent registration. He is a lawful permanent resident who allegedly registered to vote online in September 2024 and voted in-person at an early voting location. Piva has claimed, according to a press release from the attorney general’s office, that he vote was an experiment concerning voter fraud.

Finally, the attorney general’s office charged Basanth Sadasivian, 29, a resident of the United Kingdom, with being an unqualified elector attempting to vote. It is alleged Sadasivan, who is not an American citizen, registered to vote in 2024 by email via the Federal Post Card Application system using a Bloomfield Hills address and voted under the same federal system in the 2024 general election.

In the other cases referred to Nessel, investigations show that two of the voters were American citizens. Another voter was subject to a complicated international adoption as an infant and is presumed an American citizen. Another voter carries a legal residency status as a federally recognized American Indian born in Canada. That status does not confer citizenship and voting rights, but it does confer many other residence, entry and other privileges, and much of the paperwork and language around the status designation refers to such people as dual citizens. The attorney general is not issuing charges against these four people.

“While the question of whether any given resident is a citizen may feel simple, some cases are nuanced in unexpected ways,” Nessel said in a statement. “The federal government has not always provided easy or open access to certain necessary citizenship records, and so our investigators had to spend considerable time and effort coaxing cooperation from the federal agencies. These delays contributed significantly to our timeline for review.”

In six other cases concerning alleged 2024 general election votes cast by non-citizens, the attorney general closed the investigation because the department would be unable to prove the voter had the requisite knowledge or belief that they were unqualified to vote.