As ThinkProgress documented this week, both of the “non-citizens” shown in James O’Keefe’s latest video sting supposedly committing voter fraud by participating in American elections are actually American citizens.

Following our stories, ThinkProgress readers confronted O’Keefe with these facts on his Facebook page. The conservative filmmaker refused to acknowledge that the two “non-citizens” he smeared in his video, Zbigniew Gorzkowski and William Romero, are actually American citizens, demanding “official documentation that proves otherwise” before he’d correct his story.

Romero’s family provided this official documentation to ThinkProgress last night. Here is a scanned copy of Romero’s certificate of naturalization, issued on February 4, 2011. Redactions are ours:

To refresh, O’Keefe’s “proof” that Romero had committed voter fraud was that he refused jury duty in 2010 for not being a citizen but then registered to vote on December 5, 2011, as though there was no possible way his citizenship status could have changed in the interim year.

O’Keefe has pledged to correct the story if someone showed proof that it was wrong. Setting aside his misguided ethics of being willing to report outlandish smears but putting the responsibility on others to prove whether his allegations are factually correct, we have taken the liberty of providing this proof.

If O’Keefe — or any of his proponents who so enthusiastically lauded the conservative filmmaker for supposedly exposing “massive voter fraud” — issues a correction, we will update this story.

Conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe released a new video today supposedly exposing voter fraud in North Carolina by highlighting non-citizens like Zbigniew Gorzkowski who have voted in recent elections.

The problem: Gorzkowski is an American citizen.

In fact, if O’Keefe had done a simple Nexis search for “Zbigniew Gorzkowski”, he would have found a single article from the News & Observer in 2008 noting that Gorzkowski and his wife are naturalized citizens:

Customers flock through the red door of Zbigniew “Ziggy” and wife Halina Gorzkowski’s European grocery and flower shop to buy one of the 12 varieties they sell. The pierogis and 400 eastern European food items and flowers are also punching the naturalized citizen couple’s ticket for their version of the American Dream.

ThinkProgress spoke with Gorzkowski this morning. He verified that this information was indeed correct and he had been an American citizen since the late 1980s. Therefore, his votes in the 2008 and 2010 elections were not only perfectly legal, but encouraged as a civic duty.

In other words, the one instance in the video where O’Keefe purports to show that a non-citizen had actually voted, in fact shows that a citizen voted.

The episode does speak to a larger underlying problem with most accusations of voter fraud. It’s what I call the “Scooby Doo routine”. People like O’Keefe make wild voter fraud accusations like non-citizens voting, only to discover a much simpler explanation for the situation.

In this case, O’Keefe is using “evidence” of foreigners voting in American elections to supposedly demonstrate the need for draconian security measures like voter ID, which could disenfranchise 20 million citizens across the country. However, his evidence actually shows nothing more than an American citizen exercising his civic duty. Earlier this year, South Carolina went through the same Scooby Doo routine after Attorney General Alan Wilson claimed to have unearthed evidence of 953 dead voters, only for his state investigation to ultimately find no dead voters — and zero voter fraud — but rather a handful of clerical errors.

O’Keefe has a responsibility as a journalist to ensure the veracity of his facts before he makes wild charges like these. A simple phone call or Nexis search would have sufficed, yet doing so would have undercut his spurious argument that voter fraud is a widespread problem in the United States.

In January, conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe released a video featuring individuals apparently committing voter fraud during the New Hampshire primary. Rather than attempting to document authentic cases of voter impersonation — a virtually non-existent problem — O’Keefe enlisted activists to commit the crime to demonstrate how easy it is to do so. This self-appointed sting operation, unsurprisingly, may itself have violated state laws.

ThinkProgress reported that Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas (R) and Nashua City Clerk Paul Bergeron were both calling for the arrest and prosecution of those involved with the video. Their actions, according to Bergeron, likely constituted Class B felony wiretapping and possibly election fraud. Gov. John Lynch (D) called the videos “outrageous” and endorsed an investigation of whether any crimes were committeed.

Yesterday, O’Keefe revealed that he had cancelled plans to travel to New Hampshire upon learn learning he would be hit with a grand jury subpoena if he did. Speaking, by video, to a local Republican Party fundraiser, he claimed “I’ve been advised that if I appear physically in New Hampshire, I will be hit with a grand jury subpoena,” and expressed defiance. Pledging to continue to employ these controversial — and likely illegal — tactics, O’Keefe said:

I think it’s unfortunate that we live in a country these days where public officials threaten journalists — threaten to put journalists in jail for exposing facts legally. They’ve threatened to do this to me for some time, but we’re not going to stop.

Clearly, the 27-year old has not learned any lesson from previous legal hot water: in 2010, he was sentenced to pay a fine, serve three years of probation, and do 100 hours of community service after pleading guilty to federal charges stemming from a failed stunt at the offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA).

But it remains instructive that the only people actually committing voter fraud seem to be those trying to expose the problem.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson was spotted at a sparsely attended event and fundraiser with conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe on Tuesday, raising questions about whether the state’s top law enforcement official should be helping raise money for someone who appears to have committed voter fraud.

O’Keefe’s latest round of videos, where his band of actors succeed in claiming ballots belonging to well known figures like NAACP President Benjamin Jealous and HBO comedian Bill Maher, was gleefully distributed around the right-wing echo chamber, but even O’Keefe seemed to acknowledge on Tuesday the videos didn’t reveal much:

O’Keefe told the gathering he intends to make more videos, in which he pledged to “actually catch voter fraud as it actually happens.”

“We plan to actually catch non-citizens voting,” O’Keefe said, but he didn’t say where or when he thought that might happen.

O’Keefe is thought of in conservative circles as some kind of investigative reporter. In fact, O’Keefe’s recent gimmick, sending agents to pose as registered voters in primary elections around the country, has succeeded only in creating the kind of problem that he seeks to expose. As has been thoroughly documented, despite the right’s insistence that voter fraud is a widespread problem, a voter is more likely to get hit by a bolt of lightning on his or her way to the polling place than to commit voter fraud.

AG Wilson’s support for voter ID laws is not new. In January, Wilson leapt into action when it was brought to his attention that 900 dead South Carolinians had supposedly shown up to vote. The investigation that he ordered though turned up exactly zero cases of voter fraud. Undeterred, Wilson continued to insist that the threat of zombie voters was so great as to warrant the passage of discriminatory voter ID laws that succeed only in disenfranchising lower income, younger, and elderly voters.

James O’Keefe’s latest video features surrogates appearing to commit voter fraud in yesterday’s New Hampshire primary election, all in an attempt to highlight voter fraud, a problem which is by-and-large nonexistent in the Granite State.

The undercover video shows unnamed individuals working at O’Keefe’s behest approaching polling stations throughout New Hampshire. After poll workers asked for the person’s name, O’Keefe’s agents gave the name of a voter who died within the past few weeks, before then receiving a ballot to vote. The individuals asked the poll workers if they needed ID to prove their identity, and when poll workers confirmed that they did not, O’Keefe’s men insisted on returning to their car to retrieve their ID and returned the ballot.

However, in highlighting the non-problem of voter fraud in New Hampshire and elsewhere, O’Keefe’s agents appear to have committed voter fraud themselves. Section 659:34 of the New Hampshire code defines voter fraud as when a person (highlights are ours):

(a) When registering to vote; when obtaining an official ballot; or when casting a vote by official ballot, makes a false material statement regarding his or her qualifications as a voter to an election officer or submits a voter registration form, and election day registration affidavit, a qualified voter affidavit, a domicile affidavit, or an absentee registration affidavit containing false material information regarding his or her qualifications as a voter;

(b) Votes more than once for any office or measure;
(c) Applies for a ballot in a name other than his or her own;
(d) Applies for a ballot in his or her own name after he or she has voted once;
(e) Votes for any office or measure at an election if such person is not qualified to vote as provided in RSA 654; or
(f) Gives a false name or answer if under examination as to his or her qualifications as a voter before the supervisors of the checklist or moderator.

In the raw footage released by O’Keefe (reproduced below), at 12:32, the poll worker asks the unnamed individual, “what’s your name again?” The man replies with the name of a dead New Hampshire voter, “Thomas McCarron.” She then asks if he lives at “179 Harrison Street?” The man affirms, “yes.”

In another instance, at 5:00, the poll worker checks off the individual’s fake name and says, “that’s you.” He does not correct her, but implicitly affirms the false identity by taking the ballot she hands him.

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