COLDWATER, Kan. — The mayor of Coldwater, Kansas, Jose (Joe) Ceballos, has been charged with election fraud after state officials alleged he voted multiple times despite not being a U.S. citizen, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach announced Wednesday.
Ceballos, 54, was re-elected on Tuesday night, but was charged the following morning after an investigation by the Kansas Attorney General’s Office.
“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 in a statement. “Voting by noncitizens, including both legal and illegal aliens, is a very real problem. It happens. Every time a noncitizen votes, it effectively cancels out a U.S. citizen’s vote.”
According to Kobach, Ceballos is a Mexican citizen who has lived in Kansas for decades but never completed the naturalization process. He has been registered to vote since 1990.
Coldwater City Attorney Skip Herd confirmed that the issue came to light earlier this year when Ceballos applied for U.S. citizenship. “He applied for citizenship in February of this year, and through that, raised the issue of whether he was a legal citizen,” Herd said.
Ceballos now faces felony charges related to illegal voting and election misconduct. The Kansas Attorney General’s Office did not specify how many elections he allegedly participated in unlawfully.
The case remains under investigation, and officials said additional charges could be filed as more evidence is reviewed.
