Non-citizen in Miami Beach charged with voting 6 times in US elections
A Miami Beach man cast his vote in local and national elections six times before authorities said they determined that he was a British national illegally living in the United States.
James Ross Wightman, 65, was jailed on Friday and charged with six counts of illegal voting, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Authorities say Wightman was voluntarily deported from the United States in September 1989 after overstaying his visitor visa and being arrested for a drug offense in Hawaii, avoiding formal deportation proceedings.
He would return to the United States in November 2000 and submit a voter registration application falsely affirming U.S. citizenship, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
“Voting is a civic duty for every American citizen. James Wightman knew that he was not an American citizen having previously left for the United Kingdom when facing deportation,” Miami-Dade County State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement.
In November 2013, Wightman provided a fake Ohio birth certificate to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to renew his Florida driver’s license, authorities say. The Ohio Department of Health confirmed that no birth certificate exists for Wightman, according to authorities.
Wightman would then go on to vote in six local and national elections in 2022, 2023 and 2024, officials say. Voting records show that Wightman has been registered with no party affiliation since 2013.
He was jailed at Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center as of Saturday afternoon, court records show. No attorney information was available on the county clerk’s website.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Election Crime Unit led the investigation, working with the Florida Department of State Office of Election Crimes and Security, U.S. Department of State, and Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Office.
The Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections Office, Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office and Miami Beach Police Department assisted in the arrest.
This story was originally published January 25, 2025 at 12:16 PM.