Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., asked the Justice Department this week to open a probe into allegations of ballot fraud among the homeless population in California.

The center of the probe would investigate allegations of ballot fraud in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Skid Row based on testimony from investigative journalist James O’Keefe, who testified that entities involved in gathering signatures for ballot petitions were allegedly illegally compensating people in exchange for their signatures.

Paying someone to register to vote was a violation of the United States Code and is punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

O'Keefe identified two entities, Urban Signers and 1 Moore Petition, LLC, which he alleged to have engaged in the fraud, and acquired undercover video footage of Urban Signers leader Franck Tessemo admitting that his company’s petitioners use “incentives” in the form of cash and cigarettes to secure signatures for ballot petitions.

Johnson acknowledged that O'Keefe is already working with a United States attorney to investigate ballot fraud, but urged the FBI and other departments to also investigate the allegations.

"To the extent that investigations are not already underway, I write to urge the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to immediately investigate these serious allegations in order to protect the integrity of our elections," Johnson wrote in a letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche. 

The report comes after a Marina Del Ray woman admitted in a plea agreement in May that she illegally paid people on Skid Row to register to vote so they could sign ballot petitions, and in some cases those homeless people did not have an address they could put down, so she used her old one. 

The woman acknowledged in the agreement that since California sends mail-in ballots to all voters with an address, there could have been some ballots sent to where the voters didn’t live.

Johnson also asked the department to provide a briefing on federal efforts to investigate and prosecute the individuals involved in the alleged scheme, and Urban Signers and 1 Moore Petition, LLC.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.