Chinese national accused of voting in US election skips hearing, prompting bench warrant

A Chinese national accused of voting in the 2024 election in Michigan now faces a bench warrant after he failed to attend a hearing last week.

Haoxiang Gao, a 20-year-old Chinese national with a green card, was supposed to show up for a hearing in district court on Thursday but never appeared, prompting Judge J. Cedric Simpson to issue a bench warrant for his arrest. Simpson decided to issue the bench warrant after conferring with Gao's lawyer, K. Orlando Simón.

'We have copies of the voter registration form that both includes a checked box and an affirming statement of citizenship.'

Gao's legal ordeal began back on October 27 at the University of Michigan, where he apparently registered to vote and cast a ballot on the same day. He used his UM student ID card to prove local residency, Michigan Enjoyer learned after submitting several public information requests about the incident.

He must have had some misgivings about his actions because he then called the Ann Arbor clerk's office, inquiring about whether green-card holders were eligible to vote. When the staff member explained that green-card holders were ineligible to vote, Gao allegedly claimed he knew of someone who had voted using their green card at the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

Gao then called the clerk's office back 20 minutes later and admitted that he was the person who had voted and that he had "lied on the forms and attested to being a U.S. citizen," according to an email from Ann Arbor clerk Jacqueline Beaudry.

"We have copies of the voter registration form that both includes a checked box and an affirming statement of citizenship," Beaudry wrote. "We have the application to vote as well."

The following day, Gao arrived at the clerk's office looking "very upset" and claiming to have fessed up to local law enforcement, Beaudry added. Staff at the office claimed they couldn't do anything for him and suggested he find legal counsel.

It was sage advice. Gao was later charged with perjury and being an unauthorized elector who attempted to vote, both felonies. At his arraignment in November, Gao "stood mute," meaning he did not enter a specific plea, the Detroit News reported at the time.

Now with a bench warrant against him, law enforcement officers are compelled to arrest Gao, should they encounter him. As of Friday, no follow-up hearing for Gao had been scheduled.

At the moment, it's unclear where he is. Both Simón, Gao's attorney, and the University of Michigan’s Student Legal Services declined a request for comment from Votebeat, while UM and the Washtenaw County prosecutor's office did not respond to a request for comment.

'This young man’s case is what showed our entire nation the giant loophole in Michigan's election laws that allow non-citizens to vote.'

Gao is one of 16 noncitizens believed to have voted in Michigan last fall, according to an audit. Leftists like Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson — now running to replace Gretchen Whitmer as governor — celebrated the results of the audit as evidence that the system works as designed.

Such instances "represent 0.00028% of the more than 5.7 million votes cast by Michiganders in the presidential election," Benson insisted, even though she testified before Congress in September that "there is no evidence that noncitizens are voting."

However, focusing solely on the presidential election, as Benson and others have done, basically ignores the more competitive races down ballot where noncitizen votes could have greater impact. In fact, a 2024 state race in Maine was decided by just a single vote, and dozens of other state-level races across the country were decided by 100 votes or fewer.

State Rep. Bryan Posthumus (R-Rockford) — who has already proposed a constitutional amendment that would require prospective voters to provide proof of citizenship when they register and when they go to cast a ballot — believes Gao's case represents a much wider problem regarding election integrity in Michigan.

"This young man’s case is what showed our entire nation the giant loophole in Michigan's election laws that allow non-citizens to vote," Posthumus said in a statement to Blaze News.

"We now know definitively that non-citizens have voted in our elections and are voting in our elections. Law enforcement will handle this fugitive, while my part will be to close the gap by amending our state constitution to require proof of citizenship."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!