A 64-year-old man living in Winder, Georgia is facing federal charges after authorities say he used a passport falsely claiming he was born in Puerto Rico to register and vote in the 2024 presidential election. Benito Covarrubias Iniguez, originally from Jalisco, Mexico, was arrested on Monday and appeared in federal court that same day to face a charge of making a false claim of U.S. citizenship to vote in a federal election.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia, Iniguez was charged in a criminal complaint on October 16. The office said Iniguez is originally from Jalisco and lived in Winder. As reported by CBS News Atlanta, officials say Iniguez used the identity tied to that passport to obtain a Georgia driver's license, then registered to vote and cast a ballot in the 2024 presidential election.
What Investigators Have Not Said
Authorities have not said whether Iniguez voted in any other state or local elections, per the same CBS News Atlanta report. The outlet's account does not address whether Iniguez has entered a plea or how the case will proceed in court.
Officials describe Iniguez as the fourth non-citizen living in Georgia charged in recent months with voting in federal elections. That tally follows a trio of earlier cases in the state: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said his office assisted federal prosecutors in those three cases, the station's report notes.
Earlier Georgia Cases Tied to the Same Investigation
Those three defendants were named in September as part of a broader group charged nationally, with the individuals coming from Mexico, Venezuela, and Antigua and Barbuda, per the same account. Among them was Analiea Milliscent Eccles, 43, of Morrow, who is accused by federal authorities of voting nine times between 2008 and 2024, the station reported. Another, Pauline Lewis, was accused of voting by absentee ballot in the 2020, 2021, and 2024 federal elections.
A third case detailed by News-Daily involved Gabriel Covarrubias, 44, of Lawrenceville, who is alleged to have voted in person using a false name in the November 5, 2024 federal election. Authorities also allege he used a different name and claimed Puerto Rico birth in a 2023 passport application. The same outlet, citing the U.S. attorney, reported that three foreign nationals had been charged with voting in federal elections in the Northern District of Georgia since September 1, 2026.
Part of a Wider National Push
The Georgia cases sit inside a much larger federal effort. CBS News Atlanta reported that 16 people were charged across the country in an investigation announced in September. An NBC News review found the broader push has generated more than 200 voting-related federal prosecutions among the country's 174 million registered voters.
The New York Times reported that, as of the Friday referenced in its article, more than 220 people across 28 states had been charged in connection with voting violations during President Trump's second term. The paper characterized the administration's effort to identify and publicize voter-fraud cases as a far-reaching, monthslong campaign. Among the cases the Times detailed was that of Amandeep Kaur, a 30-year-old legal permanent resident from India accused of registering to vote in 2022, voting in 2024, and later making false statements about that history on her naturalization application.
The Statute at Issue
Iniguez's charge falls under 18 U.S.C. § 1015, the federal statute covering false statements related to naturalization, citizenship, or alien registry. An excerpt of the law published by the U.S. House Office of the Law Revision Counsel states that a person covered by the relevant provision may be fined, imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.
