A half-dozen people, including a county judge, two City Council members and a former county election administrator, were indicted in Texas on Wednesday for “vote harvesting” and tampering with evidence, elevating Attorney General Ken Paxton’s charges of voter fraud by mostly Latino Democrats to a criminal level.
The charges surprised Latino voting rights activists, who had insisted that a series of law enforcement raids on political operatives and voting organizers, some who were in their 70s and 80s, appeared to have been political. The raids last August by Mr. Paxton’s office were part of a sprawling voter fraud inquiry in Latino enclaves near San Antonio and in South Texas, conducted by Mr. Paxton’s “election integrity unit.”
At the time, the League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights organizations, said that officers conducting the raids took cellphones, computers and documents. An 87-year-old retired educator described heavily armed officers barging into her home and taking personal items.
LULAC leaders accused the famously conservative attorney general of trying to suppress Latino voters and asked the Justice Department to investigate the raids.
Now, five people, all with ties to Democratic candidates, are accused of illegal vote harvesting, which usually involves knocking on doors and asking if volunteers can deliver completed absentee or mail-in ballots to voting centers or ballot drop boxes.
In 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott signed an overhaul of Texas election laws which included new restrictions on vote harvesting, making it illegal to deliver a ballot for a third party. Many activists fear that the exchange of money, such as money for gas, to help deliver a ballot or cast a vote could also be considered illegal. Wednesday’s indictment accused officials of using CashApp to pay one person to engage another to collect ballots.
