Hispanic Democratic officials in Texas plead not guilty to voter fraud
The nine defendants, including Medina, were indicted last month by a South Texas district attorney working with Attorney General Ken Paxton. A state judge is expected to consider the motion to dismiss the case in early October.
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It was the second time in less than four months that Paxton has charged prominent Latino Democratic officials with criminal 'ballot harvesting,' the usually routine act of collecting absentee ballots and bringing them to drop boxes or polling sites to be counted. A half-dozen people, including a county judge, two City Council members and a former county election administrator, were charged with voter fraud in May.
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The indictments stem from Paxton's 'election integrity unit,' which launched a sprawling voter fraud inquiry in Latino enclaves near San Antonio and in South Texas. Paxton has claimed that several Latino officials engaged in vote harvesting to benefit local Latino candidates.
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'Let me be crystal clear: the integrity of our elections is the bedrock of our democratic process, and any elected official trying to cheat the system will have to answer for it,' Paxton said in a statement.
Voter harvesting usually involves knocking on doors and asking if volunteers can deliver completed absentee or mail-in ballots to voting centers or ballot drop boxes, a legal act in most of the country, and encouraged by both parties. But in 2021 Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation that outlawed delivering a ballot for a third party, the law which is now being challenged as unconstitutional.
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