A Jacksonville man was arrested after investigators alleged he voted illegally in the 2024 General Election.
News4JAX reported that a Jacksonville man was arrested over alleged illegal voting in the 2024 General Election.
The case traces back to a complaint the Florida Department of State's Office of Election Crimes and Security filed on July 30, 2026, which prompted the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to open an investigation into Padrigan's voting eligibility. The case comes amid broader statewide reviews of immigration status among registered voters.
How the Investigation Unfolded
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued a certificate of nonexistence of record for Padrigan on August 28, 2026, confirming no record existed showing he had obtained U.S. citizenship.
FDLE investigators attempted an in-person interview at Padrigan's residence on August 31, 2026.
A Duval County circuit court judge issued the arrest warrant on September 23, 2026. Padrigan was transported to jail Tuesday, with bond set at $10,003 on the illegal voting charge and $5,003 on the false affirmation of oath charge. As a condition of his bond, he was required to surrender his passport and any travel documents.
Part of a Bigger Statewide Sweep
Padrigan's arrest lands amid a much larger state enforcement push. On September 24, 2026, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and Governor Ron DeSantis announced felony voter fraud charges against 20 defendants statewide, including 16 non-citizens accused of registering and casting ballots in Florida elections, according to My Florida Legal. State investigators worked alongside federal immigration officials to identify registered voters whose records indicated non-citizen status, part of the same kind of cross-referencing that flagged Padrigan's file.
Third-degree felony convictions in Florida carry statutory maximum penalties of up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine for each offense.
The enforcement apparatus behind these cases includes the Office of Election Crimes and Security within the Department of State, which Senate Bill 524 established. State officials have also worked with USCIS on voter-eligibility reviews.
A Shifting Legal Landscape
The legal terrain around these prosecutions is still in flux at the federal level. On October 2, 2026, a Miami federal judge dismissed a federal non-citizen voting charge in the prosecution of Florida resident Cox, while expressly declining to decide whether the federal law is unconstitutional in all circumstances, according to Legal Newsline's Florida Record. U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz noted that state law independently criminalizes non-citizen voting. Padrigan's case is being prosecuted under Florida statute.
Hoodline reported deportation as a possible consequence in a similar case out of Minnesota, as Hoodline reported.
For context, Duval County recorded 649,927 registered voters and a 73.3% turnout rate during the November 2024 General Election, with 476,074 total ballots cast countywide, according to the Duval County Supervisor of Elections. Nationally, research offers a sharply different picture of how common these cases actually are: a Brennan Center for Justice study of 42 election jurisdictions covering more than 23 million votes cast in the 2016 general election identified only 30 suspected incidents of non-citizen voting referred for investigation — roughly 0.0001% of votes analyzed, per the Voting Rights Lab's reporting on that research.
