AG charges five non-citizens who allegedly voted in Michigan’s 2024 general election

Voter registrations associated with every identified non-citizen voter, whether or not their investigation resulted in charges, have been cancelled, the press release continued.

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Between 2025 and 2026, Nessel’s office has investigated 38 cases of suspected non-citizen voting spanning from 2009 to 2025. Of those, six cases have resulted in criminal charges, 10 have been closed without charges, and 22 remain under review, according to her office. 

“In my office, we’ve always taken election crimes seriously, and prosecute attacks on our voting systems to the fullest extent of the law,” Nessel said in a press release from her office. “We’re upholding election integrity by investigating all claims of non-citizen voters, as rare as they are, and holding bad actors accountable when they refuse to abide by the laws that keep our elections safe and secure.”

Nessel said the charges reflect “the severity of the allegations, the sanctity of our democracy, and the tremendous consequences of voting illegally— whether that’s done to try and ‘test’ security measures or to make an unlawful vote count.”

Michael Akioya, 39, of Oak Park, is a lawful permanent resident who allegedly registered to vote in 2016 and allegedly submitted an absentee ballot. Akioya was charged in March of 2026 with one count each of False Statement on an Absent Voter Ballot Application and False Statement on an Absentee Vote Ballot Return Envelope. 

Alondra Harker, 26, of Three Rivers, allegedly voted in person in her hometown in 2024, and is charged with Election Law – Fraudulent Registration.

The other three non-citizens — Harumi Michael, 60, of Wolverine Lake, Basanth Sadasivian, 29, residing in the United Kingdom, and Robert Piva, 67, of Roseville — all face at least one felony charge. 

Michael, a lawful permanent resident allegedly registered to vote and voted in person in the 2024 election in Commerce Township. Michael is charged with two counts of Election Law Forgery, one count of Unqualified Elector Attempting to Vote, and one count of Voter Registration – False Statement. 

Sadasivian, who does not live in the U.S., allegedly registered to vote in 2024 by email via the Federal Post Card Application system, a federal program for citizens living overseas, using a Bloomfield Hills address, and voted under that same federal system in the 2024 general election. Sadasivian is charged with one count of Election Law – Unqualified Elector Attempting to Vote.

Piva, a lawful permanent resident, allegedly registered to vote online in September 2024 and voted in-person at an early voting location in Roseville in October of that year. He has claimed his vote was an experiment concerning voter fraud, and faces one count each of Election Law Perjury, Unqualified Elector Attempting to Vote, and Election Law – Fraudulent Registration.

Meanwhile, the single U.S. citizen who was announced on Thursday to be facing charges, Kimberley DiDonato, 60, of Rose Township, is facing two felony charges — Election Forgery and Using a Computer to Commit a Crime.

She allegedly posed as her non-citizen husband and falsely claimed he was an American citizen in order to register him to vote online in April of 2024. She then allegedly contacted her local clerk in May to cancel that registration once she had received the voter registration card in her husband’s name, all of which she claims was intended to test the registration system for vulnerabilities to unqualified voter registrants.

Both Democratic and Republican elected officials responded to the charges quickly. 

“We welcome these charges because they show the system works,” Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson told reporters on Thursday. “They were a result of our investigation as well in partnership with the Attorney General’s office, and really emphasize and underscore at a time where noncitizen voting is thrown around to make people afraid or create and sow false seeds of doubt about our elections, that this is an example that the process works.”

Meanwhile, House Election Integrity Committee Chair Rep. Rachelle Smit (R-Martin) used the charges to express support for the federal SAVE Act, legislation that seeks to impose strict voter identification restrictions. Smit called Michigan “the epicenter of the problem” of non-citizen voting.

“The charges filed today are just the tip of the iceberg, and further underscore exactly why the U.S. Senate must approve the SAVE Act to safeguard our elections and ensure only U.S. citizens are voting in our elections,” Smit said. “We must remember that these are just the cases where the individual voting was caught. How many others are doing the exact same thing and just escaping the law?”

Smit added that the charges raised more questions about “a system we all know to have serious flaws.”

“Passing the SAVE act in Congress will help, just like some of the voter security measures we’ve passed in Michigan that had subsequently been held up in the state Senate,” Smit said.