NEWARK, N.J. -- Federal prosecutors in New Jersey have charged four residents with illegally voting.

The U.S. attorney’s office for New Jersey said in a statement Friday that the four people were not U.S. citizens when they registered to vote and cast ballots in federal elections, as federal law requires.

Their charges range from illegally voting in a federal election to making false statements when applying for citizenship and unlawful procurement of citizenship or naturalization.

Prosecutors say all four voted in at least one federal election from 2020 to 2024, a period that included two presidential elections and one midterm election.

They say the defendants, after casting ballots, then submitted applications for naturalization in which they falsely claimed to have never voted or registered to vote in a federal election.

U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer said the charges reflect his office's “commitment to protecting the integrity of our election system.”

Last year, the office launched a task force focused on election-related crimes such as voter registration fraud, casting of fraudulent ballots, voting by noncitizens and individuals voting multiple times in the same election.

Social media claims of widespread voter fraud surged after the 2020 election and have continued to be amplified by President Donald Trump and his allies.

But current and former election officials have said such fraud is isolated and rare. The country’s elections are decentralized, with thousands of independent voting jurisdictions, which make it virtually impossible to pull off a large-scale vote-rigging operation that could tip an election, officials have told The Associated Press.

Frazer, a veteran prosecutor, was appointed in March, ending a high profile standoff between the judiciary and the Trump administration over control of the U.S. attorney's office in New Jersey.

Trump's previous picks for the position, including his former personal attorney, Alina Habba, had been disqualified.