The Dallas Express recently interviewed Ian Camacho, who made a splash with his article in the Texas Scorecard, which exposed how Texans’ tax dollars were being used to fund a Democrat PAC’s Voter Registration Program.
The article detailed how a group associated with Beto O’Rourke, Powered By People (PXP), allegedly jumped through legal loopholes to ensure likely Democrats were registered to vote. His research revealed numerous gaps in the election code that allowed a leftist partisan organization to order voter registration forms on behalf of unregistered but eligible voters without having to foot the cost themselves. It has put a spotlight on the issue of election integrity in the Lone Star state and elsewhere.
His work is mostly solitary and painstaking, requiring him to work across state lines and navigate the intricacies of multiple jurisdictions’ election codes. He has a near encyclopedic knowledge of election law in Texas and many of the swing states that will decide the fate of the presidency in November.
QUESTION 1. What inspired you to get into this work?
“Initially, I wanted to expose grifters in the election integrity movement as I saw them hurting the right by siphoning money from well-intended people. I, too, was suspicious about the 2020 General Election results as it had ground to a halt, and suddenly Trump lost his landslide. But when most claims were easily disproven it became like The Boy Who Cried Wolf, and they slowed down investigations and distracted from real election integrity issues.
“I’ve joked that I’m like Agent Scully. I want to believe, but I am skeptical. Then I realized they’re just a symptom and not the cause of the problems.
“That said, I’ve called out J. Hutton Pulitzer as a fraud. That’s only because he attacked me unprovoked. Fortunately, more in the election integrity movement have recognized it and he’s lost credibility with many.
“I still might expose others, but I ask the big names (most are in Texas, by the way) why, after four years, they can’t get one conviction, law passed, or a tangible result, whereas I’ve been able to with a few friends, volunteers, and no money.
“What I want to do is show people how it’s done. None of this is rocket science, it’s rolling up your sleeves, finding matches, doing intensive research, contacting officials, and doing follow-ups on submissions. If we had an effective system in place, I wouldn’t be doing this at all.
“For some background, I co-led the group that came from TheDonald.win (now Patriots.win) and we formed a Discord server. We found thousands of people registered at P.O. Boxes in the swing states and even uncontested ‘safe’ red ones, like Tennessee, to spot-check. We corrected the P.O. Box list, and I submitted [it] to each county. Gwinnett passed this on to the state board of elections, which confirmed it found violations.
“Fortunately, I can afford to do this work for now. I’ll stay with it until I can’t.”
QUESTION 2. What does your Substack focus on?
“I didn’t have a particular goal or audience in mind other than having a place to share my experiences working on election-related issues and local politics.
“I share my experiences in as much detail as possible, including the grind of election integrity work, since I’m learning as I go. That includes the good and the bad, whether it’s small wins at the [Republican Party of Texas], getting my ideas shot down at a precinct chair meeting because the establishment doesn’t want change, getting the P.O. Box finds validated, getting called an election denier by left-wing media or a Soros-plant by crazy people, I’ve had successes with and pushback from party leadership, the media, and elected officials. I’m trying not to make it a gossip blog, as there’s already something like that in Waco.
“Most of what I’ve noticed tends to be elder statesmen who provide their reflections at the end of a long career, but by that time, they are so disconnected from citizens and forget how they started that you can’t relate to them. Or it’s filtered through news media interviews such as this one (no offense). Twitter sort of offers that, but for the most [part] it’s interns or someone else posting, not the account owner.
“I’m also open to suggestions for items to post about, and I encourage comments.”
QUESTION 3. How do you feel about the state of election integrity in the U.S.?
“The issue is that, aside from a basic set of rules for our federal elections, we have 50 different state elections simultaneously run during a general election, each with different laws involving ballot harvesting, drop boxes, early voting, machines, voter challenges, and other items. It’s not a uniform process.
“The training or enforcement is not uniform either. I’ve noticed many people make up the rules and don’t bother to check these themselves but go off of rumors vs. cited laws.
“I’ve seen this in Texas firsthand, such as when I call Houston’s clerks or election directors, who believe that you never remove a person from the rolls unless they die or send you a request for removal or get an undeliverable mail card, HAVA/NVRA laws be damned.
“Even for voter registration within my party, I’ve had to remind some of the rules of what we can and cannot do. Some people call me legalistic, I call it being accurate.
“I’ve even had to cite the state laws to my county elections clerk to get the SOS attorney to backtrack. Now, I know I’m persistent, but even I have difficulties. Most citizens or volunteers won’t look up laws or pursue challenges beyond notice to the election office.
“It gets even more complicated when the media participates in censorship and intentional disinformation (i.e. Hunter’s laptop) and all the things admitted to in the Time article. Add in third-party NGOs such as Zuckerberg’s financial influences. Then the various laws were ignored or not enforced. No wonder it was and still is chaotic.
“While I realize we are past 2020, and while some states have addressed a few of the vulnerabilities and issues since then, we still have a very long way to go.”
QUESTION 4. Is this a partisan issue?
“It shouldn’t be, but it is for now, unfortunately. I think when the pendulum swings the other way, which it looks like it is doing, then it will be a Democrat issue again.
“The only people who ever seem to care are those who lose elections. I don’t know if any election winners challenged the results. So, to some level, I understand the eye rolls because it seems like a sore loser scenario, but that doesn’t mean everything runs as it should.
“If you remember in 2016, Democrats were talking about their concerns with voter fraud, election machines, and all that. Kamala Harris spoke about it in 2018 when she was a senator. Senators Warren, Klobuchar, Wyden, and [Congressman] Pocan discussed issues with private machine vendors in 2019. Even last month, the Texas Democrat Chairman alleged voter fraud in a race.
“I don’t think voter fraud is unique to either party. The woman I helped convict on three counts of double voting in Tennessee was a Republican, for example.
“There are also elected officials, like a Democrat Judge in Loving County who signed off as one despite being suspended, I’ve reported.
“While perfectly secure elections are impossible, Texas can do much better. I don’t want my candidates to win through cheating and neither should Democrats, and a lack of trust in the system breeds apathy and allows these issues to continue.”
QUESTION 5. What unique election integrity issues does Texas face versus other states?
“I’d say all states have problems, and some are worse than others. Texas is way too trusting.
“I had some small wins on an issue at the Republican Party of Texas State Convention, which I am proud of since I have virtually no political connections or money.
“(1) I closed a loophole in the RPT Bylaws (11b) with the help of my SREC Committeewoman, and (2) I got plank 221(t) added, which would require a thumbprint for the reasonable impediment declaration so that it’s not merely relying on secondary documentation that doesn’t require a photo ID or government ID. Otherwise, one can commit identity theft, illegals can vote, etc. I attribute this to trial and error, and a lot of practice and persistence.
“Another difficulty is obtaining voter rolls, the cost is prohibitive to most people.
“One thing that California does significantly better than Texas (believe it or not) is that they have no gap between early voting and election day. Senator Bob Hall has been vocal about this, he’s probably one of the only people in the legislature who gets it. Texas will switch from early voting to election day machines, which not only cost a lot, but are left unattended for three days unsupervised, and it makes it easy to trace who cast what ballot (we saw this exposed Matt Rinaldi’s 2024 ballot, for example). A huge security no-no.
“I’m a volunteer deputy registrar (VDR), and one thing I see is how the law treats VDRs punitively, yet there’s almost no accountability or protections. One thing that shocked me is that we lack any database that records which VDR signed up which person, or how many voters a VDR has registered. There’s zero accountability unless the clerk manually looks through each paper registration or scanned paper application. That is absurd.
“It’s also punitive to VDRs because there’s no way for a VDR to prove that they dropped off a registration that might have gotten lost or misplaced by the clerk or election office as they don’t get any receipt. A voter could say that they signed up and that the VDR failed to deliver, and since we are not allowed to copy or scan applications, you could lose the VDR certificate and get penalized with a misdemeanor. Or, for that matter, a bad actor could falsify an application and put another VDR’s number down or use a fake one, and there’s nothing to protect them. I showed these issues to my state representative, saying that we lack accountability, but nothing has been done about this issue.
“Another is a lack of notification on complaints since I submitted over 100 including double voters, including one ERIC failed to catch. At least Wisconsin and Georgia notify you.
“And one I’m about to report on, our laws allow the SOS to send unsolicited envelopes with voter applications paid for by the taxpayer without limit anywhere by anybody.”
QUESTION 6. What is the significance of chapter 19 in Texas, and what does it incentivize?
“The short answer is: it incentivizes county clerks to keep the rolls bloated by focusing on quantity over quality, which leads to all kinds of vulnerabilities. It also contravenes the spirit of other laws that explicitly penalize individuals who get paid based on how many voters they register.
“The detailed answer is: at first glance, it pays more to cancel (0.40) and update (0.40) voters than to register a voter (0.25).
“However, in even years there’s also the same amount paid (0.40) for the margin between registered voters and initial registrations certified for the previous 2 years, PLUS the registrations are still in effect, so basically one makes 0.40+0.25+0.25=0.90 which is more incentive to add voters than to delete them since it pays 125% more than a removal!
“TLDR [Too long didn’t read]:
100 voters – 10 voters = $4.00 (10 removed x 0.40)
100 voters adjusting 10 voters = $4.00 (10 updated x 0.40)
100 voters + 10 voters = $2.50 (10 added x 0.25)
100 voters already certified + 10 certified in the odd year + 10 registered in an even year = $9.00 over 2 years [(10 added x 0.25 year one) + (10 added x 0.25 year two) + (10 margin in year two x 0.40)], or more specifically, $2.50 year one and $6.50 year two.
“Why bother to remove voters in that case? Or at least don’t do it until odd years, maximize the profit if that’s the situation.
“The math incentivizes quantity over quality, which leads to all kinds of problems.
“It also contravenes the spirit of the laws that explicitly penalize individuals getting paid based on the number of voters they register[.]”
QUESTION 7. Have you worked on these issues in other states, if so, where?
“Yes. When you find voters are illegally double voting or voting in their old state after registering in a new state, you will interact with other states’ election boards and clerks.
“The ones that have had the most success or progress have been in Tennessee, Georgia, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Arizona.”
QUESTION 8. Tell me about the recent SOS letter you received.
“If you’re referring to the [Georgia] one, it was the Georgia State Board of Elections (SBE) which just gave me a notice of continuance from August 6 to October 8 for the State Board of Elections. That was for their notice of “violations found” for 22 P.O. Box voters in Gwinnett County in the 2020 General Election, a post on Twitter I made that went somewhat viral recently.
“I don’t know if the notification’s popularity made them try to delay addressing it until just before the election. When I asked the paralegal why they had moved the date, she informed me that this was ‘to accommodate the large number of petitions for rule changes that will need to be heard, as well as the two rule change proposals the Board will need to vote on whether to adopt’ and that they had cut the number of cases they planned to hear in half.
“The case that got ‘no violations found’ (two double voters that they combined into one case for GA / PA 2022), I haven’t heard back about yet, so I presume they’ll introduce it and dismiss it, though I’d like to know why they felt it was not a violation. Was it an administrative error? I have no idea.
“The only thing involving the AG was after I followed up for an open records request and status of a complaint that got violations found and the SBE had referred to the AG. A voter – Angela McGill of Muscogee County – had moved from GA to SC, registered to vote in SC, and then came back and voted in GA in the 2022 GE. That one is still open, and they might kick it back to the SBE to handle or pass it on to the State Administrative Hearings Board.”
QUESTION 9. Where does Texas rank compared to these other states in the number and severity of issues?
“Per capita, I cannot give you an answer or rank for other states because nobody has those statistics, and even those that exist are misleading. But each state has its problems.
“Look at the recent overturning of the judge’s race from 2022 in Houston: 1,430 illegal votes cast in 1 local race. That same ruling found that 2,743 were unlawfully cast in another race. Those aren’t crossover votes based on jurisdiction. That means that over 4,000 votes in just one county in one state in one election were confirmed illegal or unlawful. The judge even ruled that the county lied to him multiple times when presenting its evidence.
“I’ve filed nearly 120 formal complaints with the Secretary of State’s Office in Texas, mostly for serious offenses like double voters, but nothing has happened with them to my knowledge.
“I’ve also filed complaints with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct for Loving County [regarding] Judge Skeet Lee Jones signing off on documents as a judge (he’s suspended due to criminal activity) and also acting as Democrat County Chairman (a conflict of interest).
“I also have three that I just sent in on voters in my precinct to the TX SOS for illegally being registered voters (commercial addresses) and who cast ballots. I have yet to hear what the SOS is doing, other than they said that they got the submissions and are reviewing them.
“The media says voter fraud is rare and that claim is based almost solely on convictions.
“A lot of the time convictions don’t happen because DAs dismiss cases. I had this happen with a double voter situation in Indiana / Arizona for 2020, but the DA dismissed the case because he felt a jury wouldn’t convict the person, as it was a copy of the ballot not the original or some weird technicality, DESPITE the election board agreeing there was probable cause.
“How can you prove that either way?
“Heritage doesn’t have a lot of data on its site. I have tried to submit a voter who got convicted on 3 counts for the 2020 [General Election] in [Tennessee] to them multiple times, and it never gets posted.
“It’s no wonder why faith in our elections is weak. We have huge integrity, honesty, and accountability problems.
“Voter fraud isn’t rare. It’s just rarely prosecuted.”
QUESTION 10. What is going on in Wisconsin?
“Wisconsin is really difficult to file challenges. For one, you must be a county resident to even bring a claim against a potential violator. Fortunately, a handful of awesome volunteers stepped up and six people registered at P.O. Boxes got referred by the Wisconsin Election Commission to their county DAs for potential investigation and prosecution.
“I followed up on these since they happened last year to find out what happened. One never got back to me, one told me that another office had to handle as the accused (a county attorney) posed a conflict of interest, and the third said that they never got details about the allegation and had no evidence. This was ridiculous, and so I looped in the city clerk to find out what she could provide as far as evidence was concerned, and to her credit, she did.
“My question is, why do I, a guy who lives in Texas, have to do the work of some Wisconsin county’s DA investigators for them? How many cases like this, or even more severe, get ignored? I hope they move forward on this case, but what a waste of time.”
QUESTION 11. What is your goal?
“I want people to be held accountable, whether citizens or government officials, and justice to be served. I also want to empower people to be successful by providing them with knowledge and showing them the process from start to end.
“Given how many cases I’ve reported and how few I’ve heard back from, I’m not convinced that voter fraud is rare or even discouraged. I’m surprised I even got a conviction in [Tennessee] and the $1,000 reward – that process also took forever (I posted about it in six parts).
“As the GOP precinct chair for McLennan County Precinct #30, my top priority is to clean out ineligible voters from my precinct and register new voters as ultimately that’s my responsibility (the Democrat chair is empty, not that I’ve seen their party express any interest in cleaning rolls since they always scream voter suppression whenever someone tries).
“My next highest priority is helping other precincts clean up in McLennan.
“Perfect or near-perfectly clean voter rolls in Texas and the USA would be ideal, but I’m starting small and focusing on my backyard.
“For the Substack, I try to show people how [the] process works, including the letters I write to the clerks (it’s public record, but I block out names unless it’s been released since I’d like to not taint any trials or get sued), all the grind involved, the follow-ups, the setbacks, the frustration, the glimmers of hope, the legal process, the patience involved, everything. That’s why I posted the six-parts about trying to get paid the reward in [Tennessee], which you think would be easy as it’s stated in law, but even that was hard.
“Anything else would be misleading them. This work is hard, tedious, and frustrating. I get why most people quit.
“The best-case scenario would be for people to stop complaining on social media and, if there is a real issue, to file a formal complaint with the SOS and clerk, using documented evidence, record keeping, and follow-up so something gets done.
“I’ve talked with clerks or party chairs in other counties who say they want to help but can’t do anything without evidence. Often, they hear complaints and accusations without facts.
“In my view, if you’re not helping or trying, then you’re part of the problem.”
QUESTION 12. Do you have help?
“I’m not being funded or employed by anybody right now if that’s what you mean.
“As for supporters, I can count on my hand the people I know who will submit results and help me find materials when I ask them, but they are the exception. They are like gold, and I wish more people were like them.
“This is not for a lack of asking. For example, I was trying to file formal complaints in [Pennsylvania] for what seem to be double voters in [Pennsylvania / New Jersey] for the 2022 General Election as the state laws require the complainant to be in that county of the allegation. I had one friend who lives in [Pennsylvania] who tried, but it didn’t work since he wasn’t in that county, and I appreciated his effort. I even had Scott Presler put me in touch with people for the affected counties. Every single one of those leads declined or failed to get back to me, even when I offered to pay for the printing, postage, and notarizing. I even posted this again after the [Georgia] P.O. Box notice went semi-viral and got nothing. I still have these, but the statute of limitations is approaching.
“I’ve often asked people if they could help report double voters in their states as required by the laws there, such as in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, and I do appreciate the handful of people who mailed these in and filed them. Nearly all of those who stepped up in Wisconsin succeeded. Six cases got referred to DAs by the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
“Unfortunately, most of the time people will talk with me about how they would die for this country, how they think the elections are stolen, and how they will fight fraud, but when I show them the process and I ask them to submit the evidence with a notarized document using the forms, they say, ‘I don’t want to get in trouble’ or ‘I don’t want people to know.’ So clearly someone’s actions speak a lot louder than their words.
“I’m always willing to train and show people, and I would love any helpers if they’re serious.”
QUESTION 13. Are there any approaching deadlines for this election?
“For Texans, the deadline to challenge ineligible voters is August 7.
“Do not wait until the last minute to challenge them. Do it now.
“Also, if you’re registering to vote, the deadline is October 7.”
QUESTION 14. Where can readers go to learn more?
“They can subscribe to my Substack, they can follow me on Twitter (I go by the birth certificate, not Elon Musk’s preferred pronouns), and they can also read my election integrity news reports on Texas Scorecard.
“I also recommend people volunteer with elections offices, as judges, clerks, and watchers, and learn the election code to see what they can and can’t do.”
