Kansas leaders charged Joe Ceballos, the mayor of a small city in rural Kansas, with a crime on Wednesday. They say he voted in several elections even though he is not a U.S. citizen.
Scott Schwab, the Secretary of State for Kansas, and Kris Kobach, the Attorney General for Kansas, both Republicans who were elected, said they had filed six charges against Ceballos, a legal permanent resident from Mexico, for voting in elections in 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Ceballos used to be a city councilman and is now the mayor of Coldwater, Fox News noted.
States are obligated by law to have ways to regularly clean up their voter registration lists, which are also called voter rolls. Kobach, a longstanding immigration hawk and ally of President Donald Trump, said that the procedure includes using outside databases to look for noncitizens, but that it is not foolproof.
“Noncitizen voting is a real problem. It is not something that happens once in a decade. It is something that happens fairly frequently,” Kobach said, echoing the broader sentiments of Republicans who say voter fraud is a pressing issue.
According to the lawsuit that Fox News Digital looked at, Ceballos’ allegations, which include lying under oath and voting when he wasn’t qualified, could get him more than five years in prison.
Kobach, who used to be the Secretary of State for Kansas, has a lengthy history of calling for stricter voter ID legislation and tougher immigration enforcement.
He lost a high-profile federal case in 2018 after trying to enforce a state rule that said voters had to provide proof of U.S. citizenship when they registered to vote.
A court said it went beyond what was needed to prove citizenship, which is against federal election laws.
The court concluded at the time that the state law could not “be justified by the scant evidence of noncitizen voter fraud before and after the law was passed.”
Kobach didn’t say how state officials found out that the mayor and former city councilman are supposedly not a citizens, but he did say that investigators have “unassailable evidence” against Ceballos.
Kobach argued that city officials, such as mayors, must also be U.S. citizens. The attorney general said this was “worth noting” but not a crime. On Election Day, Ceballos was on the ballot for re-election, but the official results have not yet been confirmed.
“In large part, our system right now is based on trust, trust that when the person signs the registration or signs the poll books saying that he is a qualified elector or that he is a United States citizen, that the person is telling the truth,” Kobach said. “In this case, we allege that Mr. Ceballos violated that trust.”
Kobach and Schwab claimed they have started using a federal government database that enables them to verify voter rolls against immigration information. They think this will help them find more voting irregularities.
Ceballos will be in court for the first time on December 3.
This comes amid the federal government shutdown, which is approaching almost 40 days.
The Democratic House and Senate leaders sent a letter to President Trump on Wednesday morning, a day after elections nationwide saw their party pick up gains in blue regions, demanding “bipartisan” talks to reopen the government.
The letter comes after most Senate Democrats have voted 14 times against a GOP-led spending bill to reopen the government.
Meanwhile, a new report suggests that key elements of a potential deal to end the federal government shutdown are beginning to take shape — though it remains uncertain when, or even if, all sides will reach an agreement.
According to Axios, the proposed “three-legged” plan includes three main components: a Senate vote on Affordable Care Act tax credits, a short-term continuing resolution to give negotiators more time to finalize a full-year budget for the fiscal year that began October 1, and a separate vote to fund military construction, the legislative branch, and agriculture programs.
Before Senate Democrats forced the government into a shutdown, the House had already passed a bill to keep it funded through November 21.
If the Senate now strikes a deal to reopen the government, the House will have to return to session and approve the measure, extending the funding deadline in the process.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and Secretary of State Scott Schwab announced charges against Jose (Joe) Ceballos, the re-elected mayor of Coldwater, alleging he voted multiple times and served in office despite not being a U.S. citizen.
The Kansas Attorney General’s Office filed six felony counts in Comanche County—three counts of voting without being qualified and three counts of election perjury.
Each charge is a non-person felony; together they could carry a sentence of more than five years in prison.
“In Kansas, it is against the law to vote if you are not a U.S. citizen. We allege that Mr. Ceballos did it multiple times,” Kobach said. “Voting by noncitizens, including both legal and illegal aliens, is a very real problem. Every time a noncitizen votes, it effectively cancels out a U.S. citizen’s vote.”
Investigators said Ceballos, a legal permanent resident and citizen of Mexico, has been registered to vote since 1990 and sought citizenship earlier this year.
The attorney general’s office said Special Agent Nate Humble and Special Agent in Charge Matt Simpson are leading the investigation, with First Assistant Attorney General Stacy Edwards prosecuting.
Ceballos is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said its Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program helped identify the voter-eligibility issue.
“This situation is absolutely unacceptable and, sadly, no surprise given the years of lax voting security in the United States,” said USCIS spokesman Matthew Tragesser. “From day one, the Trump administration made strengthening the SAVE program a top priority. SAVE is exposing bad actors and safeguarding the integrity of our elections like never before.”
USCIS said 26 states already use or are finalizing agreements with the SAVE system to verify immigration status and citizenship before voter registration.
Secretary of State Scott Schwab
credited cooperation with federal agencies for improving voter-roll accuracy.
“We now have tools, thanks to the current White House, that we haven’t had in over 10 years,” Schwab said. “We can check through the SAVE program to find out if folks end up on our voter rolls. They could be legal residents but not citizens. We want to make sure that gets clarified.”
Coldwater City Council President Britt Lenertz said Ceballos convened a special meeting following the announcement.
“Our focus remains on ensuring that city operations continue to run smoothly and that the needs of our community are met,” Lenertz said. “We will allow the proper legal process to take its course before making any further comments.”
City officials said Ceballos may finish his current two-month term but cannot remain mayor unless his citizenship is approved.
Kansas AG files charges against newly reelected mayor for voting as non-US citizen
The Kansas Attorney General’s office has filed criminal charges against a well-liked, newly re-elected small-town mayor who is alleged to have voted despite not having U.S. citizenship.
Attorney General Kris Kobach said Jose “Joe” Ceballos, 54, is a Mexican citizen with legal permanent residency in the United States but is not a citizen. Ceballos was re-elected as mayor this week by residents of Coldwater, a community of 687 people in southwestern Kansas.
Ceballos is being charged with three counts apiece of election perjury and voting without being qualified, Kobach said Wednesday at a press conference. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 68 months’ imprisonment and $200,000 in fines.
A hearing on the charges is set for Dec. 3.
Skip Herd, Coldwater city attorney, told Wichita’s KWCH-TV that Ceballos, who he said holds a green card, drew “red flags” by applying for permanent citizenship.
“He’s been a registered voter since 1990,” Herd told the news station. “He applied for citizenship in February of this year, and through that, raised the issue of whether he was a legal citizen,” Herd said.
The state’s charges are based on Ceballos’ votes in the general elections of 2022 and 2023 as well as the 2024 primary election, but Kobach said Ceballos was a registered voter prior to those elections. Ceballos did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Coldwater City Council president Britt Lenertz issued a statement saying the mayor had convened council members for a special meeting on Wednesday to discuss the situation.
“At this time, our focus remains on ensuring that city operations continue to run smoothly and that the needs of our community are met,” Lenertz said. “While the recent allegations involving the mayor are understandably concerning, we will allow the proper legal process to take its course before making any further comments.”
Lenertz told KWCH that Ceballos, who has also served as a city council member, has been informed he can complete the remaining two months of his ongoing mayoral term but that she will subsequently take over as mayor unless his citizenship is approved before then. The situation, she said, has been difficult for a community that has rallied around the longtime public official.
“As a mayor, he’s done a wonderful job,” she told the news outlet. “As a city councilmember, he’s done a wonderful job. He’s always put our community first in everything he does.”
Kobach said Kansas law requires city officers to be qualified electors, who in turn are required to be U.S. citizens.
“Noncitizen voting is a real problem,” Kobach said. “It’s not something that happens once in a decade.” Kansas is among several states, he said, now utilizing the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system, or SAVE, to verify citizenship status among their registered voter rolls. Tennessee, Florida and Ohio are also using the system, he said.
“The only way you can discover that a noncitizen is on the voter rolls is if some sort of external information comes to light which indicates that person is not a U.S. citizen,” he said. “In large part, our system right now is based on trust – trust that when the person signs the registration saying he’s a qualified elector or U.S. citizen, that the person is telling the truth. In this case we allege that Mr. Ceballos violated that trust.”
Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab said the system now allows state officials to determine if registered voters, whether intentionally or by clerical error, are on the rolls.
“If they voted, then it’s a crime,” he said. “It’s important that we clean this up.”
Schwab said the effort is less about looking for criminal behavior than restoring voter trust.
“It’s about showing the people of Kansas that we are doing what we can to make sure you know our voter rolls are as clean as we can,” he said. “It’s not a witch hunt.”
He said it will be up to Coldwater city officials to determine whether or not Ceballos should be seated as mayor, “but the law says he should not be, because he’s not a lawful elector.”
President Donald Trump recently commended Schwab, a Republican campaigning for the state governor’s seat in 2026, for using the SAVE system to “protect the integrity of our elections.”
Kobach said he anticipates that the SAVE system will help the state expose “hundreds” of noncitizen voters. Every noncitizen vote, he said, effectively cancels out the vote of a U.S. citizen.
“We don’t know how large a number it’s going to be, but early indications are that it’s a very large number,” he said. “We will have to see and decide which to prosecute.”