Election season is here, which means it’s time for more of that voting fraud Democrats swear up and down doesn’t exist:
A review of the presidential votes cast in Texas in 2008, 2012, and 2016 by the data analysis firm Votistics found a disturbing number of duplicate registrations and multiple votes. This means that inaccurate voter rolls are not harmless, forgivable mistakes.
According to Votistics, data provided by the Texas secretary of state indicate that 104,800 people appear to be registered more than once. That is, the list contains thousands of name/date of birth pairs. Of course, some cases could reflect unusual coincidences. But most are the same person. The State of Texas and county registrars have the information necessary to confirm duplicate registrations and remove the extra ones.
Votistics found that 2,159 of these “voting pairs” appeared to have cast ballots in the same election. The firm found another 272 cases of registrants who lacked fully matching middle names but also apparently voted more than once, as confirmed by data matching at various commercial sites that track personal information. While Votistics had no detailed information on these ballots, at least some of them were cast erroneously or fraudulently.
Moreover, 45,854 registrants appeared to have voted more than once in at least one general election according to the records provided by the Texas State Board of Elections.
Texas also has a problem of the dead, or presumed dead, voting. For instance, Votistics discovered that more than 3,000 of those who cast ballots apparently were older than the world’s oldest known person. Remarkable!
In 2016 alone, nearly 800 people above the age of 100 appear to have voted, most of them in person. Either the location of the Fountain of Youth is a few hundred miles off, or there’s a lot of voter impersonation going on. Regardless of whether these ballots were fraudulent, the secretary of state should lead a determined effort to fix election rolls across the state.
The problems are systemic. The American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) has been reviewing the role of inaccurate registration lists across the country. In Texas, 39 counties have more people registered than the number eligible to vote. One of the worst offenders is Starr County, with roughly 16 percent more registrants than qualified residents.
In 2014, the ACRU secured a consent decree with Terrell County, Texas requiring officials to clean up their voter rolls by eliminating outdated and duplicate names. As a result, the analysis by Votistics showed the number of “surplus” registrants down markedly.
And other cases of voting fraud keep cropping up:
Members of an organized voter fraud ring have been arrested and indicted on charges they targeted and, in one case stole, the votes of elderly voters on Fort Worth’s north side.
Four people were arrested — Leticia Sanchez, Leticia Sanchez Tepichin, Maria Solis and Laura Parra — after being indicted on 30 felony counts of voter fraud, according to a statement from the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
These people allegedly were paid to target older voters on the north side “in a scheme to generate a large number of mail ballots and then harvest those ballots for specific candidates in 2016,” the statement read.
“Ballots by mail are intended to make it easier for Texas seniors to vote,” Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. “My office is committed to ensuring that paid vote harvesters who fraudulently generate mail ballots, stealing votes from seniors, are held accountable for their despicable actions and for the damage they inflict on the electoral process.”
Vote harvesting typically happens in two stages. There’s seeding and then harvesting.
The AG’s office explains that applications for mail-in ballots are first sent to “targeted precincts.” Then, “harvesters attempt either to intercept the ballots outright or to ‘assist’ elderly voters in voting their ballots while ensuring that the votes are cast for the candidates of the harvesters’ choice.”
Let’s take a closer look at the accused fraud ring, shall we?
- Leticia Sanchez, 57, of Haltom City, faces 17 counts. She is accused of marking a voter’s ballot without his consent in March 2016, and altering and submitting applications in January and February 2016 to request ballots by mail for the Democratic Party for 2016 elections for 13 people who had made no such requests. She is also accused of providing forged signatures for three people on applications. Sanchez remained in the Tarrant County Jail at noon Friday with bail set at $1,500.
- Laura Parra, 24, of Fort Worth, faces one count. Parra is accused of providing a forged signature in January 2016 on an application for an early voting ballot. She was released from jail Thursday on a $1,500 bond.
- Leticia Sanchez Tepichin, 39, of Haltom City, faces nine counts. Tepichin is accused of providing forged signatures on two applications for early voting ballots in January and February 2016. She is also accused in seven of the counts of soliciting, encouraging, directing, aiding, or attempting to aid others in altering and submitting false information on early voting ballot applications. The false information was submitted, according to the indictment, to request ballots by mail for the Democratic Party for 2016 elections by people who had made no such request. She was being held in the Tarrant County Jail Friday at noon with bail set at $1,500.
- Maria Rosa Solis, 40, of Haltom City , faces two counts. Solis is accused of providing forged signatures in January 2016 on two applications for early voting ballots. She was released from jail on Friday on a $1,500 bond.
It’s a Class B misdemeanor under the Texas Election Code to make a false statement, or attempt to induce another person to make a false statement, on a voter registration application.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation, a non-profit law firm dedicated to election integrity, sent the alert to district attorneys in Hidalgo and Starr counties, Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas.
PILF explained that because it represents a sworn statement—and is the only verification of an applicant’s citizenship status required to register—“the voter must answer the important citizenship question on their own.”
It’s a state and federal crime for non-citizens to register to vote or cast ballots, and illegal registration or voting can prevent legal residents from becoming citizens.
The mailers were marked “URGENT!” and read, “Your voter registration application is inside. Complete, sign and return it today!” The TDP further urged recipients—which included already-registered voters, ineligible non-citizens, and deceased individuals—“Mail IMMEDIATELY to be registered to vote in the November 2018 Election!”
For the second time in two weeks, a South Texas woman has been arrested and charged with multiple counts of voter fraud.
Modesta Vela of Roma was arrested October 4 on four voter fraud charges relating to mail-in ballots. Vela is accused of approaching an elderly voter, taking the voter’s mail-in ballot for the November 2018 election, then filling it out herself and mailing it.
District Attorney Omar Escobar said his office began investigating Vela last month after the Starr County Elections Department notified him of the allegations. Vela was charged with felony counts of illegal voting, knowingly possessing a ballot or ballot envelope of another person with the intent to defraud, and election fraud, as well as a misdemeanor count of unlawful assistance of a voter.
Vela was arrested again Friday on four new voter fraud charges of tampering with a government record, namely voter registration applications. Starr County Special Crimes Unit made the arrest.
Snip.
Escobar said the AG’s office is advising local authorities on what evidence to collect in Vela’s case. Vela, a former Starr County Precinct 2 employee who was fired earlier this year, assisted over 200 mail ballot voters in Starr County’s March 2018 Democratic primary. She was also arrested in 2010 on a voter fraud charge involving improper mail ballot assistance during that year’s Democratic primary.
I know you’ll all be shocked at this revelation of the accused malefactor’s party.
