A Jamaican citizen who has never held United States citizenship pleaded guilty Monday to voting in the 2024 presidential election, federal prosecutors in New Jersey said.
Gaye Tyndale-Simpson, 55, admitted one count of voting by an alien in a federal election at a hearing in Trenton before U.S. Magistrate Judge Rukhsanah L. Singh. U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer announced the plea. Prosecutors said court filings and statements made at the hearing show she is a citizen of Jamaica who has never been an American citizen, and that she voted in the November 2024 general election, which was held in part to choose the president.
The New Jersey Globe reported that Tyndale-Simpson lives in Bridgewater and that prosecutors say she cast her ballot in Somerset County on Nov. 5, 2024, when the race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris topped the ticket. Federal law bars noncitizens from voting for president, vice president, senator or member of the House.
The Justice Department's release describes Tyndale-Simpson as an illegal alien, but the count she admitted rests on her lack of citizenship rather than her immigration status.
The FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services investigated the case. Prosecutors brought it through the Election Integrity Task Force, which Frazer's office describes as a coalition of federal law enforcement partners devoted to protecting elections held in the district. Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin D. Bleiberg of the Criminal Division is handling the prosecution.
The plea follows a string of similar prosecutions in the state. According to the Globe, a French citizen living in Toms River pleaded guilty in June to illegally voting in the 2022 congressional election, and prosecutors have charged defendants from several counties this year with election-related and naturalization offenses. Two more defendants, from Orange and South Amboy, were charged more recently with voting illegally in federal elections. Those charges are accusations that have not been proved in court.
The offense Tyndale-Simpson admitted carries a maximum sentence of six months in prison and a $100,000 fine. Singh is scheduled to sentence her on Feb. 24, 2027.
The department's announcement did not explain how investigators identified her ballot or how she came to be registered to vote. Neither the release nor the Globe's account named a lawyer for Tyndale-Simpson or carried a response from her.