In a spectacular display of bureaucratic peak-clownery, a 39-year-old French national from Toms River, New Jersey, has pleaded guilty to federal voting charges. His defense? The state of New Jersey literally signed him up itself. Eliezer Kadoch entered his guilty plea before U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Brandon Day in Trenton federal court, proving once again that the government's left hand has absolutely no idea what its far-left hand is doing.

Kadoch, who has never held U.S. citizenship, cast a ballot on November 8, 2022, in the midterm elections for the U.S. House of Representatives. He now faces up to six months in federal lockup and a cool $100,000 fine. All because he went to the DMV to get a driver's license and the state's brilliant 'automatic voter registration' system decided he was a voter. He assumed the government knew what it was doing. Spoiler alert: it didn't.

His lawyer, Yosef Jacobovitch, told reporters that Kadoch 'mistakenly believed' he was allowed to vote because of the DMV's automated red carpet. Jacobovitch noted his client accepted responsibility and had zero intent to violate federal law. Unfortunately for Kadoch, the federal government's alien voting charge is a strict liability offense. This means the feds don't have to prove you had bad intent; they just have to prove you did what their own state system set you up to do.

This entire situation perfectly illustrates what the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) has been screaming into the void about for years. If you give driver's licenses to noncitizens and then auto-register anyone who gets a license, you are going to get noncitizens on the voter rolls. It is not rocket science, yet blue states continue to act surprised when foreign nationals end up with ballots in their hands.

According to AFPI, a whole host of states—including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Virginia—have investigated their voter rolls and found noncitizens hanging out on them. AFPI’s model legislation suggests wild, radical ideas like actually requiring proof of citizenship to vote and auditing the voter rolls. Imagine that.

To make this comedy of errors even better, the feds had to assemble a whole Avengers lineup of law enforcement to take down this one French guy. U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer bragged about his Election Integrity Task Force bringing the case, which involved a joint effort from special agents at the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen: three federal agencies coordinating to catch a guy who got registered by the DMV.

While Kadoch's specific immigration status hasn't been made public, the Department of Homeland Security has previously made it clear that ICE is supposed to deport undocumented immigrants who vote. So, Kadoch gets to look forward to his October 26 sentencing date knowing he got caught in the ultimate government trap.

At the end of the day, Kadoch’s case is a hilarious and tragic reminder of what happens when progressive DMV registration policies meet rigid federal laws. The state hand-delivers you a voter registration, and the feds hand-deliver you a prison sentence. Real secure system you've got there, Jersey.

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)