Two rightwing influencers have been charged with felonies in Minneapolis over attempts in the state’s election primary to disguise themselves in what they called “Muslim garb” and claim they were local voters.

James O’Keefe and Cam Higby went to polling places in Minnesota during the state’s August primary in an attempt to show vulnerabilities in the practice of “vouching”, where a registered voter from the same precinct can vouch for another voter’s eligibility.

Hennepin county attorney Mary Moriarty announced the charges at a press conference on Wednesday, saying both would be charged with felonies for unlawful voting and identity theft. The two men entered multiple polling places and identified themselves using the names of registered Minnesota voters in those precincts, Moriarty said, thus intentionally misrepresenting their identities to election judges.

State law allows for vouching, which is rarely used; in 2024’s general election, less than 0.6% of votes used the vouching process, the Minnesota secretary of state’s website says, largely by people who needed to update their names or addresses in voter records.

Voters still need to have other ways to verify their identity, and vouchers have to sign an affidavit under penalty of perjury that they personally know the voter they’re vouching for. A voter can vouch for up to eight others.

O’Keefe and Higby did not sign these affidavits or obtain ballots, Moriarty said. If they had signed those affidavits, it would have been perjury, she said. The affidavits are a safeguard of the vouching system.

Even without the videos publicly posted by O’Keefe and Higby, Moriarty said her office would have been able to charge the case because election judges in the precincts noted their “strange behavior” and participation in the investigation.

O’Keefe, the founder of the discredited rightwing attack organization Project Veritas, and Higby have cast their work as investigative journalism and used undercover methods, including misrepresenting their identities, as part of their videos.

In social media posts after the charges were announced, Higby called them “lawfare” and claimed “no laws were broken” while linking to a fundraising site to cover his legal expenses.

“I showed how Minnesota allows cheating in elections. Now they want to TAKE MY RIGHT TO VOTE AWAY. This is lawfare,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “They want to scare all independent journalists who may challenge them. This is FASCISM.”

In the video at Minnesota polling places, O’Keefe gives names of other people when attempted to vouch for voters. Moriarty said these names of Minnesota voters were used without those voters’ knowledge.

Moriarty said some of the names of voters used by the two men were deceased, but others were alive. One man whose name was used in the attempt to vouch actually voted in the primary, so he was “shocked” his name was used by the two men, she said.

At Wednesday’s press conference, Moriarty said: “If you identify as a journalist, there is no such thing as undercover investigation in the polling place. You have to identify yourself as a journalist in the polling place, which they did not do.”

The videos came as Donald Trump and his allies have made frequent, unsubstantiated claims of election fraud. Trump has made Minnesota a target of his election lies in the past, claiming often that he won the state three times. He lost it three times.

The two men’s political views, and the intent of their video, didn’t play into the charging decision, Moriarty said.

“It is not against the law to be offensive. It’s not against the law to say the things that they said if you’re standing outside the polling place,” she said. “So, no, we can’t let people’s political bent or whatever they’re here to do affect our decisions in deciding whether to issue felony charges.”

The Minnesota secretary of state, Steve Simon, said the state’s high voter turnout and elections administration stems in part from keeping polling places “islands of calm”.

“These locations – our communities’ schools, churches, and senior centers – are the heart of our democracy and as such should be places of safety and peace,” Simon said in a statement. “Any attempt to disrupt or deceive our election workers will not be tolerated. We are grateful to our law enforcement partners for holding these individuals to account.”