LEE COUNTY, Florida — She received a voter card from the state. She cast a ballot. Now Astrid Navarrete Quintana of Fort Myers is sitting in the Lee County jail, facing a felony voting charge under a Florida law that did not exist when she voted. She is not the only one. An I-Team review by WFTS Tampa Bay 28 of charging documents for the 12 defendants publicly identified in Florida's latest voter-fraud crackdown found eight of them facing the same newer offense — Florida Statute 104.155, the unqualified-noncitizen-voting law — for votes allegedly cast before that statute took effect on February 13, 2025.
Source: WFTS Tampa Bay 28 (ABC Action News) I-Team
Noncitizen voting was already illegal in Florida before 104.155 existed. The question the I-Team's review raises is narrower and sharper: why are prosecutors using the newer law at all, when it differs from the older statute in what the state must prove — and in which defenses it expressly prohibits? The answer matters well beyond these 12 cases, because it decides whether a person who says they honestly believed they were allowed to vote can put that belief in front of a jury.
A voter card in the mail, then two felony charges
Quintana is a legal permanent resident — a green-card holder — the mother of a 2-year-old and the wife of an American citizen who served in the Army, according to her attorney, Connor Martin of Suarez, Rios & Weinberg PA in Lee County. Martin said Quintana moved to the United States as a toddler and had no criminal history until this arrest. She turned herself in on an arrest warrant in August and remains in the Lee County jail. Asked how she was doing, Martin said: “Not well. Not well. She's going through a very traumatic time at the moment.”
Permanent residency lets Quintana live in the United States, but it does not make her eligible to vote — only citizens can vote in Florida elections. Martin said she believed she could vote, particularly after the state itself mailed her a voter registration card with her name on it to her home address. “She got a voter registration card mailed to her home address with her name on it,” he said. Quintana faces two felony charges: voting as an unqualified noncitizen, and falsely affirming citizenship when she registered to vote. She has pleaded not guilty. “She had no intention to deceive anybody or to do anything that she believed was illegal,” Martin said. “That's not who she is.” These are the defence's account of her state of mind, presented as allegations and argument, not findings — the charges themselves are accusations the state still has to prove.
Two dates at the centre of the defence
Martin is pointing to two dates he believes sit at the centre of Quintana's defence. According to her arrest warrant, she voted on November 5, 2024 — the day of the 2024 general election. But the law cited in her voting charge, Statute 104.155, took effect on February 13, 2025, more than three months later. Martin has filed a motion asking a judge to dismiss that count, arguing the state cannot apply a later-created offense to earlier conduct. The motion challenges only the voting count; it does not seek dismissal of her separate false-affirmation charge, which rests on what she signed when she registered.
The difference between the two statutes is the whole case. The older law, Section 104.15, expressly requires that a person know they are not a qualified voter and willfully vote anyway. The newer statute, 104.155, does not carry that same knowledge-of-ineligibility requirement in the way the older one frames it, and it expressly bars a defence based on a person's mistaken belief about their own citizenship status — the very belief Martin says Quintana held after the state mailed her a voter card. The I-Team asked Attorney General James Uthmeier's office why defendants were being charged under a law enacted after their alleged conduct. A spokesperson said the cases remain under investigation but did not answer the specific question. The cases are being prosecuted by the Office of Statewide Prosecution, the Attorney General's own prosecuting arm.
Source: Florida Legislature — Online Sunshine, Statute 104.155
A crackdown announced less than six weeks before the midterms
At a September 24 press conference, Uthmeier announced the voting-fraud operation that targeted 20 people. Twelve of them, including Quintana, were already in custody or in the process of being arrested at that point. The Attorney General's office identified 16 of the defendants as noncitizens and four as people with felony convictions who allegedly voted while on probation. “Every illegal vote that should not be there hurts the votes of lawful American citizens,” Uthmeier said in announcing the arrests. The press conference came less than six weeks before this week's midterm elections. Uthmeier, who was appointed Attorney General by Governor Ron DeSantis, is seeking his first elected term in the office.
Florida has been here before, and the history is part of the context a judge and jury will weigh. The state's earlier, widely publicised sweep was announced in August 2022, just days before that year's primary election, and targeted 20 people accused of voting despite disqualifying murder or felony sexual-offense convictions. Those cases involved different eligibility issues from the noncitizen allegations against Quintana, and their outcomes varied: several charges were dropped or reduced, some defendants entered no-contest pleas, and one conviction was ultimately overturned after an appellate judge determined the statewide prosecutor had lacked authority to bring the case. That record is why defence lawyers in the current cases are testing the prosecution's legal foundations first — through motions like Martin's — before any trial on the facts.
An ICE detainer on top of the criminal case
For Quintana, the consequences run beyond the two felony counts. Court records show an immigration detainer has been placed on her by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Martin said — meaning that even if her family posts bond in the criminal case, she could be transferred straight into ICE custody while the case is unresolved. Martin said the family has held off on posting bond for exactly that reason. In the meantime her husband is caring for their only child with help from family and community members, and the family has set up a fundraiser to help pay immigration attorney fees. “This is not the situation that people think of when they think of an illegal alien voting,” Martin said. “We have a child without a mother, a husband without his wife.”
A judge must now rule on Martin's motion to dismiss Quintana's voting count — a ruling that will turn on whether Statute 104.155 can lawfully be applied to a November 2024 vote. Because seven other defendants face the same newer charge for pre-February 2025 votes, the same argument is available to them, and one ruling could shape all eight cases. Quintana's separate false-affirmation charge is not challenged by the motion and would remain even if she wins. The ICE detainer stays in place regardless of the criminal outcome, so her immigration fight continues on a second track.
For immigrant families across Florida — including the state's large Punjabi and South Asian communities, where many households mix citizens, green-card holders and people still waiting on status — the cases carry a practical warning that goes beyond one courtroom in Lee County: a voter card arriving in the mail is not proof of eligibility, registering or voting while not a citizen can bring felony charges and immigration consequences even where a person says the mistake was honest, and the law prosecutors choose to charge under can decide whether that honest-mistake claim is even allowed to be argued. Awaaz Punjab will follow the dismissal ruling and the remaining defendants' cases as they move through the courts.