67-year-old Kamlesh Navnitlal Shah, a retired dentist from California, said he had no idea that he was not supposed to vote in the 2024 election, as he was a permanent resident but not a citizen. He has now been charged with fraudulently registering to vote in US elections. After his name came up in the list of foreign nationals who voted in the election in California, he said he was scared as he was not aware of the situation. Dr Shah said he met an accident five to six years ago and was in a coma for six months, and can hardly talk or walk.Apart from Shah, another Indian on the list is 30-year-old Amandeep Kaur, a resident of Rancho Palos Verdes. According to the law enforcement record, Kaur is seeking to become a US citizen, and fraudulently registered to vote in December 2022 and then voted in the November 2024 US election.Shah said he went to the community center “to vote with my blind roommate”. He said his was asked to produce his ID. “I showed them the ID and my Social Security card. They did something…I don’t remember…it was a long time ago. They gave me the paperwork to vote. I thought I was registering to vote. I didn’t know about my pending citizenship. I thought I must be a citizen. I had no idea I wasn’t,” Shah said, adding that nobody told him that he was not a citizen and was not supposed to vote.
What is ‘Operation Protect the Vote’?
The administration said Operation Protect the Vote is a coordinated effort among all four California-based US Attorney’s offices to combat and root out fraud in US elections. 11 foreign nationals among 28 total charged were arrested for voter fraud. All these 28 foreign nationals have Green cards but they are not US citizens and no one except US citizens are allowed to vote in US elections.The criminal charges include making false statements in a naturalization application and some of the defendants also are charged with fraudulent voter registration. Both charges are felonies that carry a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison.On October 13, the federal government provided a list of these individuals to California to ensure that their vote-by-mail ballots were set aside until these individuals’ citizenship status could be confirmed. California declined to assist the federal government in setting aside their ballots, prompting a lawsuit by the United States that seeks a court order to prevent the unlawful dilution of American citizens’ votes and to uphold the integrity of our elections.“Every illegal vote cancels out the vote of a lawful American citizen,” said Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter. “Each of the 28 defendants charged today appears on the list of more than 20,000 likely noncitizen registrants we provided to California election officials last week. California refused to look at that list. Today’s charges show exactly what that refusal puts at risk. California must verify the citizenship of those more than 20,000 registrants before mail-in ballots are counted.”
