(Texas Scorecard) – A British man living in Harris County pleaded not guilty this week to a federal charge alleging he voted illegally in the 2024 presidential election.
Samuel James Hall, a green card holder from Great Britain, appeared in federal court on a misdemeanor charge of voting by an alien. According to his defense attorney, James Alston, Hall has lived in the Houston area for several years but is not a U.S. citizen. Federal prosecutors allege he cast a ballot in Harris County during the 2024 General Election, voting in races for president, vice president, U.S. Senate, and the House of Representatives. The charge carries a maximum penalty of one year in federal prison. Hall posted bond and is free while his case moves through court.
The FBI’s Houston field office confirmed the investigation was conducted jointly with Homeland Security Investigations and the Office of the Attorney General’s Election Integrity Unit.
The Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector and Voter Registrar’s Office said it first became aware of Hall’s presence on the voter rolls in June 2025, seven months after the election. The office notified him and stated that following that notification, “the individual self-cancelled their registration, the Voter Registrar removed them from the voter rolls accordingly and this individual is not registered to vote in Harris County.” The office added that it “remains committed to ensuring that the voter registration rolls are up to date and that only eligible citizens are enrolled and part of the process.” The office did not address how Hall was able to register in the first place.
The case comes as Harris County’s voter registration practices have faced scrutiny on a separate front. Late last year, the Texas Secretary of State’s Office validated an administrative complaint filed by State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, alleging that voters had registered at private mailbox locations rather than physical home addresses as required under state law. The review identified more than 100 such registrations across two commercial mailbox facilities in Houston, and the secretary’s office referred more than 125 additional addresses to the county for further review. Bettencourt, who authored the statute prohibiting commercial mailbox registrations, said the situation was straightforward, “No one lives in a P.O. Box, and Texans cannot legally register to vote from one.”
Separately, after Texas gained access to the federal SAVE database, the secretary of state’s office ran the state’s full voter rolls against it and identified 2,724 potential noncitizens registered to vote statewide. Prior to that, the secretary of state had already identified 33 individuals who may have voted illegally in the 2024 General Election alone, referring those cases to the attorney general’s office for investigation. The AG’s office subsequently launched a broader investigation into more than 100 potential noncitizens accused of casting ballots across multiple election cycles.
At the federal level, the Hall case is unfolding as Congress debates the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, known as the SAVE Act. The legislation passed the House in February and would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, photo identification to cast a ballot, and regular state reviews of voter rolls to identify noncitizens. President Trump has made it his top legislative priority, stating he will not sign other legislation until the bill reaches his desk. The bill faces a tougher path in the Senate, where it needs 60 votes to advance.
The bill has also become a point of contention in the Texas U.S. Senate primary. Neither Sen. John Cornyn nor Attorney General Ken Paxton cleared 50 percent in the March 3 primary, setting up a May 26 runoff. Paxton said he would consider exiting the race if Senate leadership agreed to move the SAVE Act to a floor vote. Cornyn, who had previously defended the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold for years, subsequently wrote in a New York Post op-ed that he would support “whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary” to pass the bill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters the votes to change the rule are not there within the Republican conference. President Trump has not yet issued an endorsement in the runoff.
Under the current system, registering to vote requires applicants to attest under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens. Prosecutors allege Hall registered and voted despite not being a citizen. The Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector and Voter Registrar’s Office has not explained what, if any, verification process would have caught the discrepancy before Election Day.
