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A wild situation is unfolding over in Kansas, where you have a local mayor now facing several election related felony charges because he voted for himself. The twist here though, is that this particular mayor is not a US Citizen, he's actually a Mexican national living right here in the US let's go through the details together right after. I hope you take a super quick moment to smash those like and subscribe buttons so that this video can reach ever more people via the YouTube algorithm. Now, to begin with, over in Kansas there is the small town town of Coldwater. It's located in the southern part of the state, close to the border with Oklahoma, and it's a fairly small, quiet American town. The median Property value is 73,000. The median household income is roughly 46,000. The poverty rate is about half of the national average. And in terms of the demographics, at least According to the 2020 census, it was roughly 90% white, 6% Hispanic, around 1% black, and the rest was other. So that kind of gives you a picture of this small Kansas town. Now, since 2013, a man by the name of Jose Caballos, otherwise known as Joe Caballos, he's been serving in the local government there starting in 2013, he served two consecutive four year terms on the city Council, after which he successfully ran for mayor in 2021. Then just earlier this month, he won reelection for mayor on November 4, and all was seemingly good. However, the very next day, which was November 5, the locals of Coldwater were surprised to learn that the Kansas State Attorney had announced a slew of felony charges against Mr. Ceballos. Quote, Jose Ceballos, the mayor of Coldwater, Kansas, shouldn't have been allowed to vote for himself because he isn't even a citizen, the state's attorney general said in bringing criminal charges against the man. Kris Kobach, the Republican attorney general, said Mr. Ceballos cast illegal votes in 2022, 2023 and 2024, earning him felony charges for voting without being qualified and election perjury. You see, Mr. Joe Ceballos, despite living in cold water for decades and serving on the city government, was actually a Mexican national with a green card, which of course does give him residency status, but it very much does not give him the right to vote in Kansas elections, which the attorney General alleges was exactly what was happening. According to the indictment, which you can see up on your screen, it lists out six counts of election perjury as well as voting without being qualified, with the dates ranging from 2022 to all the way up to 2024. However, although that criminal indictment only alleges voter fraud taking place since the year 2022, well, the attorney General actually said that the mayor had been registered to vote for the last 30 plus years. Quote, the city attorney, in comments reported by local news media in Kansas said Mr. Ceballos has been a registered voter since 1990. Furthermore, besides just voting in elections without being a citizen, you had the Attorney General as well as the Kansas Secretary of State also bring into question whether serving as a mayor while not himself being a US Citizen was also actually illegal as well. State law generally requires that candidates for elected city office must be a qualified elector or eligible to vote and be a resident of the city. However, cities have home rule power. It will be up to the City attorney to decide whether Ceballos is eligible to continue in his role as mayor. And that's true. Federal law requires that candidates seeking national office must be US Citizens. Kansas state law requires state level candidates to also be U.S. citizens. But the laws regarding who can and cannot be elected to the local level in Kansas are less clear. Meaning it will be up to the city of Coldwater to determine Whether or not Mr. Ceballos status precludes him from being a qualified elector and therefore ineligible to continue to serve as the local mayor. Having said that, though, the Kansas Secretary of State has actually refused to certify the most recent reelection results. Quote, At a press conference on Wednesday, Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab said that the election has not been certified. It's up to the Board of canvassers to determine whether Ceballos can be seated as mayor. The election is not over. Schwab said the law says he should not be seated because he's not a lawful elector. But again, it will be up to the local city council. Now, in summing up the you can say seriousness of the situation, you had Attorney General of Kansas, Mr. Kris Kobach. He said the following, quote, voting by noncitizens, including both legal and illegal aliens, is a very real problem. It happens every time a non citizen votes. It effectively cancels out a US Citizen's vote. And then on top of that you add Kansas Secretary of State Mr. Scott Schwab. He added the following to that sentiment, quote, I've worked with Attorney General Kobach for years on proof of citizenship as a useful tool to root out election crimes. During my time as House elections Chair, then Secretary Kobach and I fought to pass a proof of citizenship requirement. Instead, we're left relying on individuals word when it comes to verifying citizenship. I'm grateful that President Trump implemented the SAVE program to help states and to prevent situations like this. Now, the SAVE program that he's alluding to here in the statement, it's actually an acronym that stands for Safeguard American Voter Eligibility. And it's basically a proposal that President Trump endorsed which pushes states to go ahead and verify people's citizenship more aggressively before they can actually register to vote. In practice, the SAFE program is it's a voluntary initiative from Trump that basically asks states to run their voter applicants through the DHS's federal database in order to check if that person is a citizen or not. It's not a perfect program, but it does help. And Kansas is one of the 26 states to take that proposal seriously. Starting this year, the Kansas Secretary of State has been cross checking their voter rolls against the immigration records coming out of dhs. Now, interestingly though, this case with the Coldwater mayor did not have anything to do with the SAVE system. He was actually caught because a tip came in through a local sheriff's office. Although very notably, the Attorney General has declined to say who actually tipped them off about Mr. Ceballos non citizenship status. In fact, on that matter, the Attorney General simply said the following, quote, the specifics of how we came to know that this individual is on the voter rolls and voting, we're not at liberty to talk about right now. That's part of the investigation in the case, even though he didn't mention it. It might have something to do, though, with the fact that Mr. Ceballos did file paperwork to become a US citizen this year and maybe that tipped someone off locally that, hey, maybe he's not a citizen, but he is on the voter rolls and so they sent the tip to the Attorney General. That is just purely speculation. However, I'll also mention that the Kansas Attorney General, he did say that using the save system starting in 2025 could find hundreds more similar cases statewide as it's being rolled out. Although at the moment it's worth mentioning that none have been discovered. Also, it's worth mentioning that the current Secretary of State in Kansas, as well as the current Attorney General, they did fight to pass a proof of citizenship requirement in the state earlier, but it was actually struck down by the courts. Quote, in a 2018 ruling striking down a Kansas law that required people to prove their citizenship before registering to vote, a federal judge rebuked Kris Kobach, who was then the Secretary of State, for failing to provide evidence of the widespread fraud he claimed. Regardless, though, circling back to the case of Mr. Jose Ceballos, specifically, after the felony charges were announced, you had the Coldwater City Council hold a an emergency meeting on this particular matter. And after that meeting, you had the council president say via social media post that they're going to basically take a wait and see approach. Quote, While the recent allegations involving the Mayor are understandably concerning, we will allow the proper legal process to take its course. Before making any further comments. It's important that we respect both due process and the integrity of our local government. Likewise, you had the mayor's daughter add the following quote, I would like to remind everyone to be kind. You all know my father and know that he is a hard working man. I can promise you that he truly didn't know that he couldn't vote or run for the positions that he ran and served. It is a very sad day. Now, moving forward, the Coldwater Mayor is facing six felony counts related to this voter fraud, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison and upwards of a fine of $200,000. He is, of course I will mention, presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Also, his latest reelection results, as was mentioned, have not been certified. Meaning, interestingly, he's continuing on as the de facto mayor of the city because he's the incumbent, not because he was reelected. His first court appearance is scheduled for December 3rd. And frankly, what's perhaps most interesting in this particular case is that this man seems to really be beloved in his community. In the most recent election, he got over 80% of the vote. And the comments from the Coldwater Locals on any of the social media posts relating to this case are overwhelmingly positive, saying that Mr. Ceballos was just a great guy who cared deeply about the community. And so for the locals, this indictment appears to be a bitter pill to swallow. Regardless, if you'd like to go deeper into this particular case, I'll throw my research notes. You can find them down in the description box below if you want to dive deeper into the wheat. And then also on a totally unrelated topic, I recently published an episode on my other YouTube channel about how illegal aliens coming from China are being trained as CDL drivers in order to drive semi trucks and then possibly pick up these crates coming out of China, which look just like regular cargo, but actually they open up and they're disguised missiles. Missiles right here in America. If you want to check out that fascinating story, I'll throw the link to it. You'll be able to find it down in the top of the description box below. Just click on that link. It'll take you to the other YouTube channel where you can watch that fascinating episode where I didn't mention this but it's actually a united front organization. Basically it's a Chinese backed organization here in the US training Chinese illegal immigrants to get CDL licenses so they can be out on the road. And then there's a separate program sending in these crates of what appear to be other type of cargo but it's actually disguised missiles. And then are these Chinese drivers picking them up? That part is a little unclear, but we'll basically lay out what we know in that episode. Click on that link in the description box below. It'll take you to that episode. And also please do subscribe to that other YouTube channel as well. Primetime. I want to grow it, hopefully to be as big as this channel. That's the goal. So check it out. It's in the description box below. And then until next time, I'm your host Roman from the Epoch Times. Stay informed and most importantly, stay free.