Federal prosecutors have charged an Argentine national living in Las Vegas with illegally casting a ballot in Clark County during the 2024 general election, the fifth such case brought in Nevada in October. Mariela Delia Mendoza, described as a lawful permanent resident of the United States, is accused of voting despite not holding U.S. citizenship at the time.
According to news3lv.com, Mendoza is charged with one count of voting by an alien, accused of casting her ballot on or about November 5, 2024, in an election that included races for president, vice president, U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. The FBI and Homeland Security Investigations investigated the case, the station reports.
The charge against Mendoza marks the fifth federal illegal-voting case filed in Nevada in October, part of a broader wave of prosecutions that has also reached Washoe County. As reported by Nevada Globe, the filing is part of a series of targeted federal cases brought across the state over the past week.
A String of Recent Nevada Cases
Mendoza's case follows several other Nevada filings in recent days. The Reno Gazette Journal reports that Mlebinge Riziki Ramadhani, a Democratic Republic of Congo national and lawful permanent resident in Washoe County, was charged October 29 with illegally voting in the 2022 election, while lawful permanent residents Moneir Elzobier Ali Yousif, originally from Sudan, and Khalida Safi, originally from Afghanistan, were arrested October 28 on allegations tied to the 2024 election.
Jullie Ann Sumalinog Moore, originally from the Philippines, was arrested October 26 on a similar allegation, per the Reno Gazette Journal. The outlet also notes that about 1.5 million ballots were cast statewide in Nevada's 2024 general election, a figure that underscores how small a share of the electorate these cases represent.
What Mendoza Could Face
The maximum statutory penalty for voting by an alien is one year of imprisonment, a fine of up to $100,000, or both, news3lv.com reports. Nevada's cases are unfolding against the backdrop of a much larger federal effort: DHS has said it identified 300,000 potential noncitizens after reviewing more than 100 million voter records nationwide, opening 1,620 investigations and making around 160 arrests as of mid-September, according to CNN. More than 800 DHS employees have been involved in reviewing and processing the data-matching work behind that review, the network reports.
CNN also notes that federal prosecutors have brought just 23 cases alleging noncitizen voting in California during the current administration, with similar or smaller numbers charged in other states — a gap between the scale of the data review and the number of actual prosecutions nationwide. Elsewhere, the Justice Department has announced charges involving 48 noncitizens across Pennsylvania, California, Florida, New York and Nevada tied to illegal voting and related election crimes, while DHS has said a separate FBI and HSI investigation led to the arrest of ten noncitizens accused of illegally voting in North Carolina elections.
Officials Question the Numbers
State and local officials in California, Washington and Nevada have said Justice Department lists of alleged noncitizen voters appear grossly inaccurate, according to ABC News. Experts cited by the network describe noncitizen voting as already illegal and vanishingly rare.
ABC News reports that Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar said the number of flagged voters discussed by federal officials shrank dramatically as it was reviewed. “So it went from 16,000, and then to the 185, and then down to zero from our perspective,” Aguilar said. Separately, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber's office has received approximately 300 grand jury subpoenas since August in connection with the federal investigation, CNN reports.
