Two Green Card Holders Charged With Illegally Voting in Baldwin and Clarke County Elections

MOBILE, Ala. — Federal authorities arrested two lawful permanent residents Thursday, Oct. 8, on charges of illegally voting in Alabama elections while not U.S. citizens. One is accused of voting in Clarke County and the other in Baldwin County.

Federal prosecutors identified the defendants as Staciann Pollion Davis, 42, a Jamaican national, and Silvia Delgado Phelps, 78, a Peruvian national. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, both are lawful permanent residents, commonly called green card holders. Federal law does not allow green card holders to vote in federal elections.

Davis is accused of voting in the November 2024 general election in Clarke County. Phelps is accused of voting in multiple elections in Baldwin County. Both were charged under federal criminal complaints and appeared before a federal magistrate judge in Mobile after their arrests.

The charges are accusations. Davis and Phelps are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.

What the defendants are charged with

Each defendant is charged with “voting by aliens,” a federal misdemeanor. If convicted, each faces up to one year in federal prison and a fine of up to $100,000. Prosecutors noted that a conviction could also put their lawful permanent resident status at risk.

The FBI investigated both cases with help from the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office. The cases are being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Alabama, which is based in Mobile and covers southwest Alabama counties including Mobile, Baldwin and Clarke.

Court records in the cases were limited at first. One report said no indictment or complaint was available for either defendant at the time of the arrests. Another, citing federal complaints, described the elections each is accused of voting in. Neither Davis nor Phelps has entered a plea or been convicted, and neither had commented publicly as of Friday. It was not immediately clear whether either had an attorney who could speak for them.

U.S. attorney: ‘Federal elections belong to American citizens’

U.S. Attorney Sean P. Costello, who leads the Southern District of Alabama, announced the charges in a news release.

“Federal elections belong to American citizens – period,” Costello said. “When individuals who are not citizens cast ballots or falsely claim citizenship, they violate federal law, undermine the integrity of our electoral process and erode the public’s confidence in the fairness of our elections. These charges send a clear message: We will enforce the law. We will hold offenders accountable. We will safeguard the voting process for the citizens it is meant to serve.”

Christopher R. Flowers, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Mobile Field Office, said election crimes are a priority for his office.

“The FBI is committed to investigating allegations of election-related crimes, following the evidence wherever it leads, and working alongside our law enforcement partners to ensure those who violate federal law are held accountable,” Flowers said.

Understanding the law

The charge is based on a federal law that makes it a crime for someone who is not a U.S. citizen to vote in an election held at least in part to elect federal candidates. That includes elections for president, vice president, U.S. Senate and U.S. House. The law was added in 1996 as part of a broad federal immigration overhaul. Because general elections in Alabama put federal and state races on the same ballot, a noncitizen who votes in such an election is voting in a federal election.

The law includes a narrow exception for people who reasonably believed they were citizens. It covers certain people who have lived permanently in the U.S. since before age 16 and whose parents are or were citizens. Whether any exception applies in a particular case is a question for the courts.

There are two separate issues in many illegal voting cases: the act of voting and any false claim of citizenship made to register. Falsely claiming to be a citizen in order to register or vote is a separate federal offense, and some versions of it are felonies. The charges announced Thursday are the misdemeanor offense of voting by a noncitizen.

The immigration consequences can be serious. Under federal immigration law, a noncitizen who votes in violation of federal, state or local law can be deportable and may be barred from becoming a citizen or returning to the country. That is why prosecutors noted that a conviction could put the defendants’ green card status at risk.

Who can vote in Alabama

Lawful permanent residents may live and work in the United States permanently and can often apply for citizenship after several years. Until they become naturalized citizens, however, they may not vote in federal elections. Alabama law also limits voting in state and local elections to U.S. citizens.

To register to vote in Alabama, a person must:

• Be a citizen of the United States.
• Live in Alabama.
• Be at least 18 years old by Election Day.
• Not be barred from voting because of a disqualifying felony conviction, unless their voting rights have been restored.
• Not have been declared mentally incompetent by a court.

Applicants must swear or affirm that they meet these qualifications, including citizenship, and the registration form warns that providing false information can lead to criminal penalties. County boards of registrars handle voter registration across the state, and the Secretary of State’s Office maintains the statewide voter list.

Anyone unsure whether they are eligible can contact their county board of registrars or visit the Alabama Secretary of State’s website, sos.alabama.gov, before registering or voting. Noncitizens with questions about how voting could affect their immigration status should talk with an immigration attorney.

Noncitizen voting in context

Whether noncitizens are voting has been a heated national political issue in recent years, and it has also drawn attention in Alabama. Studies and state audits have generally found that voting by noncitizens is rare compared with the total number of ballots cast. Election officials and prosecutors say even a small number of cases deserves enforcement.

In August 2024, the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office began a process to remove from the voter rolls people who had been issued noncitizen identification numbers by the Department of Homeland Security. Voting rights groups and the U.S. Department of Justice challenged the effort. In October 2024, a federal judge ordered the state to halt it, finding that it likely violated a provision of the National Voter Registration Act that limits systematic removals from the voter rolls in the 90 days before a federal election. Some of the people flagged turned out to be naturalized citizens who were eligible to vote.

Federal officials did not say how the two cases came to investigators’ attention. Election officials across the country have a few tools for checking citizenship. One is the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, or SAVE, a federal database run by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that government agencies use to verify a person’s immigration status. Officials can also compare voter rolls against other government records. A match in one of those systems does not prove someone voted illegally, which is why investigators typically review voting histories and registration records before any charges are filed.

The two cases involve counties of very different sizes. Baldwin County is one of the fastest-growing counties in Alabama and includes the Eastern Shore and the Gulf beaches. Clarke County is a largely rural county north of Mobile, with Grove Hill as its county seat. Both are in the Southern District of Alabama, which is why the cases are being handled in federal court in Mobile.

The cases announced Thursday are separate from the 2024 voter-roll effort. They are individual criminal prosecutions in which federal investigators, working with the Secretary of State’s Office, allege that specific people voted when they were not eligible.

What happens next

The cases will proceed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. In misdemeanor cases, the government may proceed by complaint or information instead of a grand jury indictment, and the cases are often handled before a magistrate judge. The defendants will have the chance to respond to the charges, and the government must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt if the cases go to trial.

The arrests come less than a month before Alabama’s Nov. 3 general election. Election officials encourage eligible voters to confirm their registration and polling place through the Secretary of State’s Office or their county board of registrars ahead of Election Day.

Anyone with information about possible election crimes can report it to the FBI at tips.fbi.gov or by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI. Concerns can also be reported to the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office or local election officials.

Key facts

• Defendants: Staciann Pollion Davis, 42, a Jamaican national, and Silvia Delgado Phelps, 78, a Peruvian national, both lawful permanent residents.
• Allegations: Davis is accused of voting in the November 2024 general election in Clarke County. Phelps is accused of voting in multiple Baldwin County elections.
• Charge: Voting by aliens, a federal misdemeanor.
• Maximum penalty: Up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000 each, with possible loss of permanent resident status.
• Investigators: FBI, with help from the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office.
• Prosecutor: U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Alabama.