Right-wing influencers charged after Minnesota polling station stunt

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A Minnesota county attorney is charging right-wing influencers James O’Keefe and Cameron Higby with felony counts of unlawful voting and identity theft, alleging that the two claimed other voters’ identities while visiting polling places with concealed cameras during the state’s August primary.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said O’Keefe and Higby attempted to register to vote on the day of the primary by claiming the names of real voters — some alive and some deceased. They stopped when told they would have to sign oaths to vouch for someone else’s residence and did not actually cast votes.

The influencers had been attempting to test the state’s “vouching” process, which allows a registered voter in a precinct to vouch that another person lives where they say they live. Moriarty said the system is often used by senior citizens who haven’t updated their driver’s licenses after moving into nursing homes.

“You cannot give somebody else’s name and misrepresent yourself,” Moriarty said. “Whether or not they intended to vote is irrelevant.”

The charges against the influencers come days before the November 3 midterm elections in which Democrats are aiming to topple the GOP’s House and Senate majorities.

It also comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has sent multiple states lists of what it alleges are noncitizens on the voter rolls, intensifying its controversial efforts to stop those people from voting in the election. Trump has for years made false and disproven claims about widespread voting fraud.

The two influencers did not immediately respond to email messages seeking comment on the charges.

According to the criminal complaints, the two men disguised themselves in what O’Keefe described on X as “traditional Muslim attire.”

“We wanted to put the process to an extreme real-world test and document what election workers would tell us when confronted with the scenario firsthand,” the conservative provocateur said in a social media post in August.

O’Keefe, 42, was the founder of Project Veritas , a right-wing activist group that targeted journalists in sting videos that were often deceptively edited. He was fired by the Project Veritas board in 2023, and has since founded O’Keefe Media Group, where he has continued to produce videos that he claims take aim at corruption.

Moriarty added that the videos posted online of their efforts were deceptively edited.

She said election judges who were on hand raised concerns about what she described as their “strange behavior,” and flagged it to police. She said the living voters whose names O’Keefe and Higby attempted to use said they had no knowledge of their efforts.

“There’s no such thing as ‘undercover’ investigation in the polling place,” she said. “You have to identify yourself as a journalist in the polling place, which they did not.”

The two have not yet been arrested, but will be sent copies of the criminal complaint with the date of their first court appearances by the county clerk.

“This is not meant to send a message. It’s meant for these particular people to understand that what they did was unlawful,” Moriarty said.

“Minnesota’s enduring tradition of high voter turnout and excellence in elections administration is due in part to the work we all do to keep polling places as ‘islands of calm,’” Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said in a statement following Moriarty’s announcement.

“These locations — our communities’ schools, churches, and senior centers – are the heart of our democracy and as such should be places of safety and peace. Any attempt to disrupt or deceive our election workers will not be tolerated.”

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明尼苏达州一名县检察官指控右翼影响者詹姆斯·奥基夫和卡梅伦·希格比犯有非法投票和身份盗窃重罪，称两人在8月份该州初选期间，携带隐藏摄像头前往投票站，冒充其他选民的身份。

亨内平县检察官玛丽·莫里亚蒂表示，奥基夫和希格比试图在初选当天冒用真实选民的姓名进行选民登记——其中一些选民仍然在世，一些则已去世。当被告知需要签署宣誓书以证明他人居住地真实性时，他们便停止了登记，并且实际上并未投票。

这些网红一直在尝试测试该州的“担保”流程，该流程允许选区的注册选民担保另一个人居住在其声称的住址。莫里亚蒂表示，这套系统经常被搬进养老院后没有更新驾照的老年人使用。

莫里亚蒂说：“你不能冒用他人的姓名，也不能谎称自己是选民。他们是否打算投票并不重要。”

对这些网红的指控是在11月3日中期选举前几天提出的，民主党的目标是在这次选举中推翻共和党在众议院和参议院的多数席位。

与此同时，特朗普政府已向多个州发送了据称是选民名册上的非公民名单，加大了阻止这些人投票的力度，此举引发争议。多年来，特朗普一直发表关于存在大规模选举舞弊的虚假且已被证伪的言论。

这两位网红尚未回复记者就指控置评的电子邮件。

根据刑事诉讼书，这两名男子伪装成奥基夫在 X 上描述的“传统穆斯林服装”。

“我们想对这一过程进行极端的现实检验，并记录选举工作人员在亲身面对这种情况时会告诉我们什么，”这位保守派煽动者在 8 月份的一篇社交媒体帖子中说道。

现年42岁的奥基夫是右翼激进组织“真相工程”（Project Veritas）的创始人，该组织以拍摄钓鱼视频为目标，这些视频通常经过精心剪辑，具有欺骗性。2023年，他被“真相工程”董事会解雇，之后创立了奥基夫媒体集团（O'Keefe Media Group），并继续制作他声称旨在揭露腐败的视频。

莫里亚蒂补充说，网上发布的他们努力的视频经过了欺骗性的剪辑。

她说，在场的选举工作人员对他们的“怪异行为”表示担忧，并向警方报案。她还说，奥基夫和希格比试图冒用其姓名的在世选民表示，他们对此毫不知情。

她说：“投票站里根本不存在什么‘卧底’调查。你必须在投票站表明自己的记者身份，而他们并没有这样做。”

两人尚未被逮捕，但县书记员会将刑事起诉书副本连同他们首次出庭的日期一起寄给他们。

莫里亚蒂说：“这并不是为了传递某种信息，而是为了让这些人明白，他们的行为是违法的。”

“明尼苏达州长期以来选民投票率高、选举管理出色，部分原因在于我们所有人为保持投票站‘平静的岛屿’所做的工作，”明尼苏达州州务卿史蒂夫·西蒙在莫里亚蒂宣布消息后发表声明说。

“这些场所——我们社区的学校、教堂和老年中心——是我们民主的核心，因此应该是安全与和平的地方。任何试图干扰或欺骗我们选举工作人员的行为都将不被容忍。”