British national arrested for voting illegally in 6 local, national Florida elections
MIAMI, Fla. -- British national James Ross Wightman, 65, was arrested for voter fraud in Florida.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement says Wightman, an illegal alien from the United Kingdom, was arrested Friday in Miami Beach on six counts of voting illegally.
“Voting is a civic duty for every American citizen. James Wightman knew that he was not an American citizen having previously left for the United Kingdom when facing deportation," State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said. "His lack of citizenship did not stop him from allegedly casting a vote in our elections. There is no excuse for such actions or conduct, which violate Florida law and cloud our voting integrity.”
According to FDLE, Wightman's drug offense arrest in Hawaii got him voluntarily deported from the U.S. in 1989.
"He [Wightman] overstayed his Visitor Visa and was afforded voluntary deportation in Sept. 1989 in lieu of a formal deportation proceeding," per FDLE.
FDLE investigators say Wightman came back to the U.S., falsely claiming citizenship on a voter registration application he submitted in Nov. 2000. Thirteen years later, when renewing his driver's license with the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, he gave them a fake Ohio birth certificate. The Ohio Department of Health confirmed that no such certificate existed for a James Ross Wightman.
Wightman illegally voted in six local and national elections in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
He was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
