They really out here setting people up. A 39-year-old French national named Eliezer Kadoch living out in Toms River, New Jersey, just had to plead guilty in a Trenton federal court for casting a ballot in the 2022 midterms. The crazy part? He only voted because the state's own DMV system automatically signed him up when he went to get his driver's license. Now, instead of fixing their broken computers, the feds are tryna send this man to federal prison for up to six months and hit him with a massive $100,000 fine.

Kadoch stood before U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Brandon Day and admitted he voted on November 8, 2022, which was a federal election for the U.S. House of Representatives. Kadoch is a French citizen and has never been a U.S. citizen, which makes voting a federal crime. But he didn't sneak onto the rolls—the state of New Jersey put him there. He literally thought he was good to go because the government handed him the registration.

His lawyer, Yosef Jacobovitch, kept it 100, explaining that Kadoch honestly thought he was allowed to vote because of the automatic registration. Jacobovitch said his client accepted responsibility, but pointed out there was zero criminal intent. But here is the real kicker: under federal law, they don't even have to prove you meant to do something wrong. It's a strict liability charge, meaning if the system glitches and you fall for it, you're the one catching the felony.

This whole mess is exactly what the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) has been talking about. They've been warning that when you mix giving driver's licenses to noncitizens with automatic voter registration, you're going to end up with noncitizens on the voter rolls. It's a straight-up administrative trap, and regular people are the ones getting snapped by it.

According to AFPI, New Jersey isn't the only place with a messy system. They reported that a bunch of states—including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Virginia—have looked into their rolls and found noncitizens signed up. AFPI is pushing for laws that require real proof of citizenship to vote and regular audits so people don't get caught up in these registration errors.

To make it even wilder, the government brought in the whole squad to prosecute this one man. U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer had his Election Integrity Task Force on the case, bringing in special agents from the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). They had three major federal agencies teaming up to take down a guy from Toms River who just did what the DMV system prompted him to do.

We still don't know Kadoch's official immigration status because the feds didn't release it, but the stakes are high. The Department of Homeland Security has already told ICE to deport undocumented immigrants who vote in elections. So on top of the prison time and the crazy $100k fine, this man is looking at major immigration trouble all because of a DMV mix-up.

Kadoch is set to be sentenced on October 26. This whole situation shows how the justice system will quick-fast lock a regular person up for a mistake their own automated system created. If the government can't keep their own registration rolls straight, they shouldn't be sending the FBI to ruin a man's life over an honest mistake.

Sources: * U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey (Official Press Release and Court Filings) * U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey (Case Docket: Eliezer Kadoch) * America First Policy Institute (Policy Reports on Noncitizen Voter Registration) * Department of Homeland Security (Directives on Noncitizen Voting and Deportation Enforcement)