A former councilwoman in a small Orange County town faces multiple felony charges for allegedly forging nomination paperwork to run for re-election in a district where she no longer resided and illegally voting in the November 2024 election.
Hong Alyce Van, 40, of Anaheim, has been charged with perjury, filing false nomination papers, offering a false document and voting illegally.
From 2020 to 2024, Van served as a member of the City Council of Stanton, a small town in northern Orange County located about 7 miles southwest of Anaheim.
She was elected to represent the town’s Second District but allegedly moved to a different district in 2021 and failed to resign her seat as required by law.
The Orange County District Attorney’s Office alleges that she lied about her residence to continue serving on the council, including driving to her former home and walking to city hall meetings to give the appearance she was still living in the district she’d been elected to serve.
In July 2024, Van submitted nomination paperwork for re-election in her old district, committing perjury in the process, the D.A.’s Office said.
She then allegedly cast a vote in the November General Election while being registered at her old address, a violation of voter laws.
Van ultimately suffered a landslide loss in her bid for re-election, with questions about her residency a criticism of her campaign, according to the OC Independent.
“The integrity of our elections will be safeguarded, and political candidates who lie and cheat the system in order to get elected will be prosecuted,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer in a news release. “These are not mistakes. These are deliberate decisions to interfere with our democratic process, and they will not be tolerated.”
If convicted on all counts, she faces up to six years in state prison. She is scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 29.
Van, the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants who was born in a refugee camp in Hong Kong, graduated from Rancho Alamitos High School and received degrees from Yale University and Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, her city council bio reads.
Although both Van and her opponent, special education teacher Victor Barrios, ran as nonpartisan candidates, Van was endorsed by the Democratic Party of Orange County, while Barrios was endorsed by the local Republican Party.
