Small-town Kansas mayor was re-elected. Then he was charged with illegally voting
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kansas AG charges Coldwater mayor with illegal voting and election perjury.
- Prosecutors allege votes in 2022, 2023 and Aug 2024; registered since 2006.
- Local officials weigh mayoral status and legal process; felony penalties possible.
On Tuesday, Jose “Joe” Ceballos handily won re-election as mayor of Coldwater, Kansas, capturing roughly 83% of the vote, according to unofficial results.
Attorney General Kris Kobach announced charges against Ceballos the next day — three counts of voting without being qualified and three counts of election perjury.
A legal permanent resident of the U.S. with Mexican citizenship, Ceballos was first elected mayor of the town of fewer than 700 people just north of the Oklahoma border in 2021. Before that, he served two four-year terms on the City Council.
At a press conference on Wednesday and in Comanche County District Court filings, Kobach alleged that, as a non-U.S. citizen, Ceballos illegally voted in August 2024, November 2023 and November 2022. Election officials said Ceballos has been on the Kansas voter rolls since at least 2006.
“In large part, our system right now is based on trust,” Kobach told reporters. “Trust that when the person signs the registration or signs the poll books saying that he’s a qualified elector or that he is a United States citizen, that the person is telling the truth. In this case, we allege that Mr. Ceballos violated that trust.”
Ceballos did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday by phone, email or Facebook message.
Coldwater’s official response
In a post on the south-central Kansas town’s official Facebook page, Coldwater City Council President Britt Lenertz said Ceballos called a special meeting Wednesday afternoon “to discuss recent events that have transpired with the Kansas Attorney General’s Office.”
“At this time, our focus remains on ensuring that city operations continue to run smoothly and that the needs of our community are met,” Lenertz’s statement reads.
“While the recent allegations involving the mayor are understandably concerning, we will allow the proper legal process to take its course before making any further comments,” Lenertz continued. “It’s important that we respect both due process and the integrity of our local government.”
Coldwater is located roughly 325 miles southwest of Kansas City.
The city website briefly describes the mayor’s role overseeing day-to-day city business.
“The Mayor presides over the City Council meetings, serves as a spokesperson for the community, facilitates communication and understanding among elected officials, assists the City Council in setting goals and policies by participating in its deliberations and serves as an ambassador and defender of the community,” the website says.
In a phone interview on Thursday, Lenertz said the city attorney will determine whether Ceballos can serve out the final two months of his current term.
“He’s working on, I believe, his citizenship,” Lenertz said of Ceballos. “If he can get approval on his citizenship before swearing in for his next term, then he will be able to legally be mayor.”
Lenertz described Ceballos as “very dedicated” to his role as a local official.
“He’s always wanted to make sure that the citizens and that the town are taken care of, and he volunteers a lot of hours to make sure that things get done,” Lenertz said. “Just about everybody in the community knows him and knows that he is an outstanding member of our community.”
Coldwater community reacts
In comments under the post on Coldwater’s Facebook page, community members grappled with the news of the charges brought against Ceballos.
His daughter, Jewell Falletti, defended her father’s integrity.
“I would like to remind everyone to be kind,” Faletti commented. “You all know my father and know that he is a hard working man. I can promise you that he TRULY didn’t know that he couldn’t vote or run for the positions that he ran and served. It is a very sad day…”
Other users weighed in with their own thoughts about the mayor.
“Joe was a pleasure to work with when I worked for the city and he was head of the water department,” one user commented. “He’s one of the most honest, intelligent and hardworking people I know. He obviously won by a landslide, and I pray the city gives him their full support. This petty action by Kobach makes me ill.”
Another user commented that Ceballos should be granted U.S citizenship — “effective retroactively from the time he began all his services to the community.”
One user questioned whether the city’s legal department would represent Ceballos in court, and another posted a meme featuring President Donald Trump with the caption, “Enjoy an ice cold glass of deportation.”
What happens next?
Kobach and Secretary of State Scott Schwab declined to say who tipped them off about Ceballos’ non-citizen status.
“The specifics of how we came to know that this individual is on the voter rolls and voting, we’re not at liberty to talk about right now,” Kobach said. “That’s part of the investigation in the case.”
Kansas law requires state-level candidates for office to be citizens, and federal laws require the same of candidates seeking national office. But laws surrounding who can and can’t be elected to local offices in Kansas are less clear.
Kobach and Schwab told reporters it will be up to local officials to decide whether Ceballos will be allowed to continue as mayor.
Kobach said the felony charges brought against Ceballos carry a potential maximum penalty of up to 68 months in prison and up to $200,000 in fines.
Immigration attorney’s perspective
Kobach, the one-time head of Trump’s voter fraud commission, has for years pushed the narrative that scores of non-citizens are illegally voting in U.S. elections.
In a 2018 ruling striking down a Kansas law that required people to prove their citizenship before registering to vote, a federal judge rebuked Kobach, then secretary of state, for failing to provide evidence of the widespread fraud he claimed.
Kansas City immigration attorney Michael Sharma-Crawford said the non-citizens who do cast ballots by and large don’t know they’re breaking the law. Misunderstandings at the DMV are a common culprit, he said.
“They’ll go to get a driver’s license and the person behind the counter will go, ‘Do you want to register?’ The motor voter kind of thing,” Sharma-Crawford said. “‘Well, I don’t know if I can.’ ‘Oh, you can. Sure, you can.’ ‘Well, I don’t have a green card.’ ‘You can vote.’ It’s that momentary social pressure there or at a voter registration event.
“That persuasion leads a lot of people to register,” he added. “‘They told me I could’ is the more frequent commentary.”
Sharma-Crawford said Trump’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement is stoking fear in communities across the country.
“Everybody’s just afraid because there is this machine that is marching at everybody that’s not a citizen of the United States, or who they don’t think is a citizen of the United States,” he said.
In July, Lenexa police informed City Councilmember Melanie Arroyo that she would have to provide documents proving her citizenship after an anonymous tipster suggested she may be in the country illegally in a call to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation
Arroyo, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was able to resolve the matter, but said the citizenship probe caused her “emotional and mental harm.”
This story was originally published November 6, 2025 at 4:45 PM.
