Two right-wing influencers have been charged with felonies in Minneapolis for attempting, during the state’s primary election, to disguise themselves in what they called “Muslim garb” and claim to be local voters. James O’Keefe and Cam Higby went to polling places in Minnesota during the state’s August primary in an attempt to show vulnerabilities in the practice of “attestation,” where a registered voter from the same district can attest to the eligibility of another voter. County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced the charges at a news conference Wednesday, saying both would be charged with felony counts of illegal voting and identity theft. The two men entered multiple polling locations and identified themselves using the names of registered Minnesota voters in those precincts, Moriarty said, thereby intentionally misrepresenting their identities to election judges. State law allows attestation, which is rarely used; In the 2024 general election, less than 0.6% of votes used the endorsement process, the Minnesota secretary of state’s website says, largely by people who needed to update their names or addresses in voter records. Voters still need to have other ways to verify their identity, and vouchers must sign an affidavit, under penalty of perjury, that they personally know the voter they are vouching for. A voter can respond for up to eight other people. O’Keefe and Higby did not sign these affidavits or obtain ballots, Moriarty said. If they had signed those affidavits, it would have been perjury, he said. Affidavits are a safeguard of the guarantee system. Even without the publicly released videos by O’Keefe and Higby, Moriarty said his office would have been able to file charges in the case because precinct election judges noticed their “strange behavior” and involvement in the investigation. O’Keefe, the founder of the discredited right-wing attack organization Project Veritas, and Higby have presented their work as investigative journalism and have used undercover methods, including misrepresenting their identities, as part of their videos. In social media posts after the charges were announced, Higby called them “lawfare” and claimed that “no laws were broken” while linking to a fundraising site to cover his legal expenses. “I showed how Minnesota allows cheating in elections. Now they want to TAKE AWAY MY RIGHT TO VOTE. This is lawfare,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “They want to scare all independent journalists who might challenge them. This is FASCISM.” In the video at Minnesota polling places, O’Keefe gives names of other people when trying to vouch for voters. Moriarty said these names of Minnesota voters were used without those voters’ knowledge. Moriarty said some of the voter names used by the two men were deceased, but others were alive. A man whose name was used in the attestation attempt actually voted in the primary, so he was “surprised” that the two men used his name, he said. At Wednesday’s news conference, Moriarty said, “If you identify yourself as a journalist, there is no such thing as an undercover investigation at the polling place. You have to identify yourself as a journalist at the polling place, which they didn’t do.” fraud. Trump has made Minnesota a target of his election lies in the past, often claiming he won the state three times. He lost it three times. The political views of the two men and the intent of their video did not factor into the decision to press charges, Moriarty said. “It’s not illegal to be offensive. It’s not illegal to say the things they said if you’re standing outside the polling place,” he said. “So no, we can’t let people’s political leanings or whatever they’re here affect our decisions in deciding whether to file felony charges.” Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said the state’s high voter turnout and election administration is due in part to polling places being “islands of calm.” “Any attempt to disrupt or mislead our election workers will not be tolerated. We thank our law enforcement partners for holding these individuals accountable.”
