Although his team has been looking into multiple allegations, including ballot harvesting and voter fraud, one key focus of the raids is an organization that is believed to have been registering non-citizens to vote in the U.S., although the organization was not named publicly.
Paxton said that the idea of organizations who claim they are helping with voter registration but are instead illegally registering noncitizens is very troubling and that his office looks into every credible report they receive about actions that could put the integrity of our elections in doubt.
He noted: “The Biden-Harris Administration has intentionally flooded our country with illegal aliens, and without proper safeguards, foreign nationals can illegally influence elections at the local, state, and national level.”
A number of nonprofit groups have been setting up booths outside of official driver’s license centers in Texas on the pretense of registering voters, but Paxton pointed out that the state offers all American citizens the opportunity to register to vote when they apply for a new driver’s license or a renewal.
“If eligible citizens can legally register to vote when conducting their business at a DPS office, why would they need a second opportunity to register with a booth outside?” Paxton asked in a press statement.
Multiple search warrants were executed in Frio, Bexar and Atascosa counties as part of the investigation.
Misrepresenting an individual’s citizenship status while registering to vote is illegal in Texas, with violators facing up to two years behind bars and a fine of $10,000. It is also against the law to help a noncitizen register to vote; those who are convicted of this crime face up to 20 years in jail and a fine of $10,000.
Noncitizen voting became a second-degree felony in a bill signed into law last year by Governor Greg Abbott, while a different bill signed in 2021 added further election integrity measures, such as regular citizenship checks of the names on the state's voter rolls and ID requirements for voters using mail-in ballots. The state regularly checks its voter registration list against information from DPS about noncitizens as well as lists of individuals who have been barred from serving for jury duty due to a lack of citizenship.
Another law signed by Abbott in 2021 enables the state to withhold funds from any counties that fail to remove noncitizens from their voter rolls. In addition, Texans can challenge an individual’s voter registration based on their citizenship, prompting a hearing and potentially having their registration cancelled if it turns out they are not a citizen.
The director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Steve McCraw, said that all organizations will be temporarily banned from operating on Department of Public Safety property while the investigation continues.
Texas election worker charged with improper distribution of ballots in midterm elections
Texas has been taking a hard stance on vote fraud lately. In another case that recently made headlines, a Democrat election worker in Harris County, Texas, was charged for his role in rigging the midterm elections in 2022.
Darryl Blackburn, who was tasked with distributing paper ballots, is facing six felony charges of tampering and theft after improperly delivering the ballots and leaving many of the counties' Republican precincts with insufficient paper ballots for the election.
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