Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty has filed felony charges against conservative journalists James O’Keefe and Cam Higby over hidden-camera videos they recorded at Minneapolis polling places during Minnesota’s Aug. 11 primary, according to a statement from her office released Wednesday.
Both men face one count of unlawful voting and one count of identity theft, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said. The office said O’Keefe, 42, and Higby, 26, visited multiple precincts and gave election judges the names of registered voters in those precincts without the voters’ knowledge or permission, then posted the videos to social media “to try to sow doubt about Minnesota’s secure voting systems.”
James O’Keefe on the Felony Charges for Exposing Fraud in Minnesota:
This is not political. It is fundamental. It is about whether citizens still have the right to question their government. This is now a landmark First Amendment case, and every American’s right to speak truth… pic.twitter.com/vBbkaW0Rk4
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) October 29, 2026
The videos centered on Minnesota’s “vouching” rule. Under state law, a registered voter can go to the polls with an unregistered voter and sign an oath confirming that person’s address, and one voter can vouch for up to eight people, MPR News reported. In footage posted by O’Keefe’s team, the men asked poll workers whether they could vouch for other voters, and the workers explained the law before the team walked out, according to MPR News.
Moriarty’s own words at Wednesday’s news conference have become the center of the fight. “I think it’s pretty clear they did not intend to vote. That’s not the question here,” she said, according to MPR News. “Both men stopped short of signing the oath we all sign before receiving our ballot,” Moriarty added, according to NBC News, “but Minnesota law states clearly that no individual shall intentionally misrepresent their identity in applying for a ballot.”
Moriarty also said the names used included some residents who had died and at least one person who had voted, MPR News reported. The prosecutor said the two men will be issued summonses rather than jailed, NBC News reported, and MPR News said an initial court appearance is set for Nov. 16.
O’Keefe answered the charges the same day. “We stand by our reporting,” he wrote in a statement published by O’Keefe Media Group, calling the case “an attempt to criminalize investigative journalism” and “a landmark 1st Amendment case.” He said his team was trained never to sign an affidavit, never to obtain a ballot and never to touch one, and that they “clearly stopped and walked out of the polling places.” In a post on X, O’Keefe said “weaponized lawfare does not work against me,” NTD reported.
The charges are rare. MPR News reported that state court records show the specific election interference charges filed against O’Keefe and Higby have been used only once since 2021.
Minnesota officials have defended how the primary was run. Secretary of State Steve Simon said after the videos surfaced that poll workers did exactly what they were supposed to do to protect the integrity of the election, MPR News reported. Moriarty said her office had been alerted by the Secretary of State’s Office, according to the same report.
The case lands days before the Nov. 3 general election and keeps a spotlight on vouching, a practice few voters outside Minnesota had heard of before O’Keefe’s videos. The Guardian reported that fewer than 0.6% of votes in Minnesota’s 2024 general election used vouching. Critics of the prosecution, including O’Keefe, argue the charges punish the people who exposed the rule rather than addressing the rule itself. Moriarty has said the issue is simply that “you cannot give somebody else’s name and misrepresent yourself as you go through the process,” according to MPR News.
Neither man has entered a plea, and the charges are allegations that have not been proven in court.
Sources
Sources cited
- https://www.hennepinattorney.org/en/news/news/2026/October/election-charges
- https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/10/28/james-okeefe-and-cam-higby-charged-with-unlawful-voting-for-youtube-videos
- https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/james-okeefe-minnesota-unlawful-voting-identity-theft-charges-rcna606142
- https://okeefemediagroup.com/minnesota-charges-james-okeefe-cam-higby/
- https://www.ntd.com/james-okeefe-cam-higby-face-felony-charges-over-minnesota-election-videos_1182074.html
- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/28/voting-felony-disguise-minneapolis
Sources
- Original post: James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) on X, Oct 28, 2026
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