A 23-year-old woman born in Haiti has pleaded guilty to illegally voting in Miami-Dade County after federal prosecutors say she twice claimed to be a U.S. citizen on voter-registration paperwork and then cast a ballot in the 2024 general election. Valery Zidor now faces up to five years in federal prison after admitting to the scheme this week.
According to WPLG Local 10, Zidor submitted two voter-registration forms to the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections and falsely claimed U.S. citizenship on both. Federal prosecutors and Homeland Security Investigations announced her guilty plea Tuesday, and the Justice Department said Zidor cast a ballot in Miami-Dade during the 2024 general election, according to a Justice Department announcement.
Zidor pleaded guilty to two counts of making a false claim of citizenship to vote and one count of voting by an alien, the station's report indicates. Prosecutors announced her guilty plea Tuesday in Miami-Dade County, and she now faces up to five years in federal prison as a result of the plea.
Prosecutors Frame the Case as a Warning
U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones said election laws have meaning only if they are enforced, per the same account from the Southern District of Florida. He added that his office will continue to investigate and prosecute deliberate violations of federal election law, signaling that Zidor's case is unlikely to be the last brought under that banner locally.
The Miami-Dade case lands amid a wider federal push targeting alleged noncitizen voting across the country. In Michigan, 43-year-old Victoria Viktorovna Aquilina, a Russian national from Birmingham, was charged with voting by an alien after allegedly casting a ballot in the Nov. 5, 2024, presidential election, according to The Detroit News.
Similar Cases Surface Nationwide
Federal authorities also secured a guilty plea from Jose Gargenis Vasquez Rosa, who was accused of illegally voting in Michigan while using a stolen identity, as reported by the Washington Times. He pleaded guilty to illegal voting by an alien, false claim of citizenship and a false statement on a passport application. In New Jersey, authorities charged legal permanent residents Muhammad Shakeel and Muhammad Muzammal with voting before becoming citizens; the Washington Times reported that Muzammal registered and voted in the November 2020 general election.
In Texas, federal prosecutors have charged seven noncitizens in a broader illegal-voting enforcement effort, including allegations that one defendant, Adams, falsely claimed U.S. citizenship on a voter-registration application in June 2024 and voted that November, according to a Justice Department announcement from the Northern District of Texas.
How Big Is the Problem, Really?
Despite the flurry of cases, the numbers involved remain small relative to the overall electorate. A ProPublica analysis of Justice Department data found that fewer than 150 alleged noncitizen voters were referred for prosecution between January 2025 and May 2026, and just 41 people were charged with illegal voting or other election-related crimes in that span, even though Homeland Security Investigations searches generated tens of thousands of leads regarding alleged illegal voting nationwide, as detailed by ProPublica.
Older studies point to similarly minuscule rates. A 2016 Brennan Center study cited by the Fair Elections Center identified just 30 instances of suspected noncitizen voting across 42 jurisdictions, accounting for roughly 0.0001% of votes cast in those jurisdictions. A 2024 review of Georgia's voter rolls, also cited by the Fair Elections Center, found only 20 noncitizens among the state's 8.2 million registered voters.
