The Justice Department under President Trump has announced a federal election integrity charge against a California woman accused of paying people to register to vote.
Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong, 64, of Marina del Rey, faces one felony count of paying another person to register to vote.
Federal prosecutors say she agreed to plead guilty.
The charge carries a statutory maximum of five years in federal prison.
FBI RESPONDS: Director of the FBI Kash Patel's statement on the indictment of Brenda Brown from our Skid Row Election Fraud Investigation. @FBIDirectorKash https://t.co/pdKseUWKFH
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) May 18, 2026
According to the Justice Department, Armstrong worked for roughly 20 years as a petition circulator, collecting signatures for ballot initiatives.
Prosecutors say she regularly paid people small amounts of cash to sign petitions.
The Justice Department laid out the alleged voter registration scheme this way:
“False registrations undermine Americans’ faith in elections, even more so when payoffs are involved,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
“This Justice Department is committed to ensuring that all U.S. elections are fair and free from illegal meddling, so that all Americans can accept the results with confidence.”
According to her plea agreement, Armstrong periodically worked as a petition circulator for approximately 20 years.
She was paid by coordinators to collect voter signatures on official petitions that qualify initiatives, referendums, and recalls for California state ballots.
Armstrong regularly paid and offered to pay individuals cash, usually between $2 and $3, to induce them to sign her petitions.
Starting no later than 2025, she began offering payment to complete voter registration forms in addition to petition signatures.
ADVERTISEMENTSome homeless people did not have an address to put on the forms.
On several occasions, Armstrong provided a homeless individual with her own former address in Los Angeles so they had something to write on the registration form.
Because California automatically sends a vote-by-mail ballot to every registered voter, prosecutors noted that ballots could potentially be sent to addresses where the registered individuals did not actually live or collect mail.
BREAKING: California woman to plead guilty for paying homeless people on Skid Row to register to votehttps://t.co/xyzu69lLpQ
— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) May 18, 2026
The announcement comes after conservative journalist James O’Keefe said his undercover investigation captured petitioners admitting they were paid for signatures.
O’Keefe said his team posed as homeless individuals on Los Angeles Skid Row using hidden cameras.
The Washington Examiner reported on the connection between the O’Keefe investigation and the federal charge.
The Justice Department announced Monday that it charged a California woman with violating the law by paying people to register to vote.
ADVERTISEMENTBrenda Lee Brown Armstrong, 64, was charged with one felony count of paying homeless people living in the Skid Row area of downtown Los Angeles, and other individuals, to register.
Armstrong, also known as Anika, faces up to five years in prison and has agreed to plead guilty, according to prosecutors.
Her coordinators only paid for signatures attributable to registered voters.
Prosecutors say that led Armstrong to pay homeless people in Los Angeles to register to vote so they could add their signatures to petitions involving initiatives, referendums, and recalls.
“Armstrong regularly paid and offered to pay individuals cash, usually in amounts between $2 and $3, to induce them to sign her petitions,” prosecutors said.
“Starting no later than 2025, Armstrong began offering payment to individuals not only to sign her petitions, but also to complete a voter registration form.”
The development comes after conservative media figure James O’Keefe said Sunday that his undercover investigation found petitioners admitted they are paid $7 to $10 per signature, sometimes earning $1,000 or more per day.
O’Keefe said he and his team posed as homeless individuals on Skid Row, using hidden cameras to capture Armstrong on camera.
Armstrong appeared Monday morning in a Santa Ana courtroom.
First U.S. Assistant Attorney Bill Essayli explained the mechanics of the alleged scheme at a news conference.
According to NBC Los Angeles:
Federal authorities identified Brown Armstrong as a longtime petition circulator.
ADVERTISEMENTShe collected voter signatures on official petitions that qualify initiatives, referendums, and recalls for election ballots.
The signed petitions were returned to coordinators, who provided payment for signatures that could be attributed to registered voters.
Some of the signatures were collected in downtown Los Angeles’ Skid Row.
Federal prosecutors alleged that Brown Armstrong paid $2 to $3 and offered cigarettes and phone cards in exchange for signatures on petitions.
“While Skid Row offered a high-density location to collect petition signatures, many of the homeless people were not registered to vote in California,” court documents stated.
“Before she could have a homeless person sign a petition, she first needed to get them to register to vote, and that’s what she paid them to do,” First U.S. Assistant Attorney Bill Essayli said at a Monday news conference.
It was not immediately clear how many people were registered to vote.
The case represents the kind of election integrity enforcement that conservatives have long called for.
For years, concerns about vulnerabilities in voter registration systems were dismissed as conspiracy theories.
Now the Trump DOJ has brought a federal charge with an agreed guilty plea.
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