An Australian woman who is a legal permanent resident and lives in Franklinton was charged with federal crimes for illegally voting in two elections in 2022 and 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Denise Nataly Migliore, 51, was charged with making false statements to register to vote and illegally voting. She could face up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for violating federal law, the Justice Department said in a Monday news release.
Migliore allegedly registered to vote illegally in October 2022 and 2024 and then cast a ballot in the November elections both years.
President Donald Trump’s administration and Louisiana elected officials have moved aggressively to in recent years.
Critics argue that those efforts are intimidating potential voters and needlessly putting obstacles in the way of casting ballots. They point to studies that show fraudulent ballots are very rare and argue there’s no evidence they have affected the outcomes of elections.
But Trump and Louisiana leaders have said the integrity of elections is paramount.
“Every illegal vote cast diminishes the value of the vote of a lawful citizen and erodes public trust in our elections,” Secretary of State Nancy Landry, who oversees Louisiana’s elections, said in a statement.
Landry said the federal indictment “is the direct result of Louisiana’s proactive efforts to identify and investigate individuals who may be unlawfully registered to vote.”
The case against originated through Louisiana’s use of the federal SAVE database, which is administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, to check voters’ citizenship status and efforts by the secretary of state’s Election Integrity Division in partnership with federal law enforcement, Landry said.
Last year, Louisiana elections officials began using the database to verify the citizenship status of registered voters and vowed to investigate and prosecute any noncitizens who have voted in Louisiana elections.
In September, that, of the state’s roughly 3 million registered voters, 79 were noncitizens who had voted in at least one election dating back to the 1980s.
Gov. Jeff Landry last month signed into law Act 6, which now requires the Louisiana secretary of state to check registered voters’ citizenship status in the federal SAVE database every year, investigate any voters who are flagged as noncitizens and refer cases for prosecution.