A British pensioner is in custody in Florida accused of illegally voting six times in elections over three years, authorities in the Sunshine State allege.
James Ross Wightman, 65, a resident of glamorous Miami Beach, voted in both local and national elections in 2022, 2023, and 2024 before being arrested in Miami Beach Friday, according to a release from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. It’s not clear for how the elderly man voted for.
Wightman, who authorities said was an “illegal alien” from the UK, was caught just as President Donald Trump signed an executive order “that suspends [the] physical entry of aliens [illegal immigrants] engaged in an invasion of the United States through the southern border”, as per The White House.
The Brit has a colorful track record, as authorities shared he was voluntarily deported from the U.S. in 1989 for a drug offense arrest in Hawaii and was found to have overstayed on his visitor visa.
Authorities offered the man voluntary deportation that year instead of a formal deportation proceeding, said the release.
But FDLE investigators allege that Wightman returned to the U.S.
When he did, he falsely affirmed being a U.S. citizen on a voter registration application he submitted in November 2000 and registered as a no-party voter, just as Al Gore and George W. Bush squared off in one of the closest presidential elections of all time, in which Florida played a key role reported Local10.
Thirteen years later, Wightman “presented a fictitious Ohio birth certificate to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles” when he went to renew his Florida Driver’s License.
According to The Ohio Department of Health, there was no trace of a birth certificate for Wightman under the biographical information he provided on the certificate at the time.
Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd said: “Florida leads the nation in election security, and we continue to aggressively enforce our laws to stop non-citizens from voting.
“Under the leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis, The Florida Department of State Office of Election Crimes and Security swiftly reviews allegations of fraud working with FDLE and law enforcement to ensure Florida laws are followed.”
Wightman was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center and is scheduled to be prosecuted by the Office of the State Attorney, 11th Judicial Circuit, according to the FDLE.
Supervisor of Elections for Broward County, Florida, Joe Scott, states that a person guilty of voter fraud can be convicted of a third-degree felony offense and fined up to $5,000, as well as being imprisoned for up to 5 years.
