The Texas Attorney General’s Office raided Starr County’s election office on Thursday after obtaining a warrant for a complaint asserting voter fraud in the South Texas county.
The warrant, released by Republican candidate recruitment organization ProjectRedTX, authorized a police search for unopened rejected ballots that Starr County did not tally in the November 2022 midterm elections.
The warrant instructed police to seek evidence that the Texas Penal Code and the Texas Election Code were violated.
Police searched for evidence that Starr County officials influenced the independent exercise of the vote of another in the presence of the ballot, illegally possessed a mail ballot or carrier envelope as part of a vote-harvesting operation, or illegally compensated a carrier envelope action.
The raid comes after ProjectRedTX filed a complaint with the Texas Secretary of State alleging illegal ballot harvesting in Starr County last October.
The complaint highlighted the role of Modesta Vela, who allegedly illegally assisted a voter with filling out a ballot. According to the complaint’s allegations, Vela entered a potential voter’s home, filled out their ballot, and left with the completed ballot.
ProjectRedTX claims they have video and audio proof that Vela entered the voter’s home and illegally assisted the voter in filling out their ballot.
Vela was previously indicted for allegedly illegally voting in Starr County in 2019, but the charges were later dismissed because of a lack of evidence. She is a political operative who has worked for multiple South Texas candidates, including County Judge Eloy Vera.
Judge Vera told The Monitor that he believed the raid was an attempt to paint South Texas Democrats as corrupt.
“I think this is more political. And they try and do everything and they try to publicize it to make it seem like the Democratic Party here in the Valley is totally corrupted, but, in my opinion, it’s not.”
Ballot harvesting, a controversial voting method dramatically expanded by many states during the COVID-19 pandemic, is tightly restricted in Texas. Despite that, multiple investigations have continued to uncover potential evidence of election-related fraud in South Texas.
Allegations of public corruption are not new to South Texas. Former President Lyndon Johnson purportedly stole a Senate election utilizing fake votes in South Texas, an allegation backed up by his biographer Robert Caro’s extensive research into LBJ’s life and political career.
More recently, the Texas District & County Attorneys Association published an article detailing the history and causes of that purported corruption, dubbing backroom deals in South Texas the “valley handshake.”
