Hennepin County Charges Far-Right Influencers Following Election Fraud Stunt

Minneapolis, MN – Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced felony charges of identity theft and unlawful voting against far-right influencers James O’Keefe and Cam Higby on Wednesday, Oct. 28.

“Before the August 11 primary election this office was very clear that reports of unlawful activity related to the election would be investigated and charged if appropriate,” Moriarty said during a press conference held on Oct. 27.

The charges stem from a series of videos produced by the duo during the Minnesota primary election on Aug. 11, where the two attempted to document what they alleged was a flaw in the state’s voter registration system that allows voters to prove their residence by having neighbors vouch for them.

In the videos, Higby and O’Keefe, representing O’Keefe’s Florida-based Citizens Justice League, provide the names of actual voters in the area to poll workers but stop short of signing the oath to receive the ballot.

“Minnesota law states clearly that no individual shall intentionally misrepresent their identity in applying for a ballot,” Moriarty said, addressing the fact that neither man actually received a ballot. “The charges filed today are appropriate to address the conduct of Mr. O’Keefe and Mr. Higby.”

Read the charging complaints at the end of the article or click the name: Cam Higby / James O’Keefe

The vouching system in Minnesota is rarely used, accounting for less than 0.6% of all votes cast during the 2024 election, according to Moriarty. The system is most often used among those who live in senior living facilities, where residents often do not obtain drivers licenses updated with the facility’s address.

Despite this, both men disguised themselves as Muslim women and visited polling locations across Minneapolis.

In one video published Aug. 14 Higby made a clear case for election fraud against himself. In it, he appears dressed in a niqab, with the area around his eyes painted a shade of brown, while attempting to vote under his assumed aliases, all of which were the real names of registered voters.

Throughout the video, Higby repeatedly asks the poll workers if the potential voter being vouched for needs a form of identification. At the first polling location, the poll worker tells him the other person needs one.

“No,” Higby said in a forced accent. “We don’t have ID. We no have pocket.”

If a voter is being vouched for at a polling place, they still need to provide either their Minnesota driver’s license, an ID card number or the last four digits of their social security number, according to the Secretary of State website.

Poll workers immediately reported Higby and O’Keefe’s group after their visits, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon told KSTP News later that day.

“Their apparent goal was to cast doubt on one or more Minnesota election laws that have been in force for over fifty years,” Simon said in a statement. “Instead, they revealed their ignorance of how those laws actually work – while putting themselves in legal jeopardy.”

O’Keefe defended his and Higby’s actions that day by citing his earlier work with Project Veritas “investigating” the 2012 and 2016 elections in New Hampshire.

Project Veritas, founded by O’Keefe in June 2010, was described by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2022 as a “hard-right propaganda group that engages in sting operations.”

In New Hampshire in 2012, O’Keefe’s group visited a polling location and requested the ballots for numerous dead people whose names had yet to be culled from voter rolls. The state opened a criminal investigation into O’Keefe and his group, quietly dropping the charges the next year.

The strategy used in Minneapolis in August of sending somebody into a polling location under false pretenses dressed in a burqa is not entirely new to O’Keefe. During the 2016 presidential election, a female Project Veritas journalist dressed in a burqa entered a New York City polling location and requested the ballot of Huma Abedin.

On Oct. 26, two days before Hennepin County announced the charges, the two attempted the same investigation in Florida, both still dressed as Muslims.

In 2010, O’Keefe pleaded guilty to entering federal property under false pretenses, for which he was ordered to pay a $1,500 fine and placed on three years’ probation. The conviction stemmed from an attempted illegal sting operation on then-Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu.

Although he was ousted from Project Veritas by its Board of Directors in 2023, the 2010 charges led to at least one state, Florida, banning O’Keefe from fundraising for the organization.

O’Keefe and Higby’s actions in Minneapolis follow months of voter fraud claims from President Donald Trump, culminating most recently in his proposed $1 million reward for “anybody reporting Voter Fraud in past Elections, or the upcoming 2026 Midterm.”

Right-wing outrage on X in response to the charges portrayed Moriarty as a far-left activist, even being reposted by Elon Musk.

Notably, violent J6er and white supremacist provocateur Edward Jacob “Jake” Lang has taken time away from protesting the “sharia law post office” in Plymouth with fellow agitator Zak X to protest the charges. Lang appeared at Minneapolis City Hall that same day and was allegedly snubbed by an employee, who immediately walked into a back room and left Lang alone with whoever was holding his camera.

“This is what me and Zak have been going through for years,” Lang said in a video filmed in Zak X’s car. “This is what the J6ers went through.”

Zak X, born Zachary Allen Stumpf, is currently facing multiple criminal charges for physically assaulting protesters since December 2025. Before that first assault charge, a female coworker from a car dealership he used to work at was granted multiple restraining orders against him for allegedly raping her.

O’Keefe and Higby are both set to appear before the court at 2:00 p.m. on Nov. 16 at the Hennepin County District Court.

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Cover image contributed by L. Cam Anderson.

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