A 24-year-old West New York resident originally from the Dominican Republic has been charged with voting in two 2022 New Jersey elections while she was not yet a U.S. citizen, then lying about it on her naturalization paperwork. Lizabeth Almonte Rosa appeared in federal court in Newark this week to face charges that could carry up to 10 years behind bars.
According to Hudson County View, U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer announced that Almonte Rosa was charged with voting by an alien in a federal election and unlawfully procuring U.S. citizenship. Court documents cited by the New Jersey Globe say she entered the country from the Dominican Republic on an IR2 visa and had not yet become a naturalized citizen when she registered to vote, falsely certifying her citizenship on the registration form.
Prosecutors allege Almonte Rosa then cast ballots in person in both the June 2022 primary and the November 2022 general election, according to the same report. She later applied for citizenship and, on her N-400 naturalization application, allegedly swore under penalty of perjury that she had never registered to vote or cast a ballot in a federal election — a statement prosecutors say was false. She has since become a naturalized citizen, the New Jersey Globe reports.
Charges and Potential Penalties
The illegal-voting charge carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a $100,000 fine, while the citizenship-related charge carries up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, per the New Jersey Globe's reporting. Almonte Rosa made her initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stacey D. Adams in Newark federal court, where Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin D. Bleiberg is representing the government, according to Hudson County View.
As Diario Libre notes, the charges and allegations are accusations only, and Almonte Rosa is presumed innocent unless proven guilty. The case was brought through the Election Integrity Task Force, which Diario Libre describes as a coalition of federal law-enforcement agencies focused on protecting election integrity in the District of New Jersey. Frazer credited U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, FBI special agents under Special Agent in Charge Stefanie Roddy, and Homeland Security Investigations under Special Agent in Charge Michael McCarthy with the investigation, according to Hudson County View.
Second Hudson County Case in Weeks
Almonte Rosa is the second Hudson County woman charged in recent weeks over allegedly illegal voting. Federal prosecutors previously charged 64-year-old Sanata Coulibaly of Hudson County with illegally voting in four elections between 2018 and 2024, the New Jersey Globe reports; the municipality where Coulibaly resided or voted has not been publicly disclosed. Prosecutors also charged Patrick Terrance Reid, 61, of Orange, and Danubis Bernat, 49, of South Amboy, with illegally voting and making false statements on citizenship applications, per the same outlet.
Part of a Broader Federal Push
The case lands amid a wider federal effort to root out noncitizen voting. Homeland Security Investigations has reviewed tens of millions of voter records as part of what KCRA describes as a phased national initiative involving voter-roll acquisition, data analysis, investigative leads and field investigations. A June 1 HSI report said investigators had ingested 50.6 million records from a Justice Department dataset and another 48.4 million records from independent sources, with New Jersey and Pennsylvania identified as areas of focus, KCRA reports.
In July, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said DHS had found roughly 250,000 noncitizens registered to vote across California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Nevada, though officials in those states challenged the claims, according to KCRA. New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill has said the state registered thousands of noncitizens to vote and that about 300 of them cast ballots, as reported by the New Jersey Monitor. The Republican National Committee, which filed requests for 13 categories of voter records from state and county officials on July 31, has sued New Jersey's secretary of state and five county election supervisors, alleging they withheld voter records required under the National Voter Registration Act; the RNC also sued in state court in early July, and that case remains pending, the New Jersey Monitor reports.
Under federal law, only U.S. citizens are permitted to register and vote in federal elections. The relevant federal statute, 18 U.S.C. § 611, makes it unlawful for an alien to vote in an election held wholly or partly for a federal purpose, according to the U.S. House's codified text of the law.
