by Catherine Smith
A Texas woman was arrested and charged for allegedly operating a massive ballot harvesting scheme after undercover video footage showed her committing election fraud.
Rachel Rodriguez was arrested and charged with election fraud, illegal voting, unlawfully assisting people voting by mail, and unlawfully possessing an official ballot, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Wednesday. Each charge constitutes a felony under the Texas Election Code.
“Many continue to claim that there’s no such thing as election fraud. We’ve always known that such a claim is false and misleading, and today we have additional hard evidence,” Paxton said in a statement.
“This is a victory for election integrity and a strong signal that anyone who attempts to defraud the people of Texas, deprive them of their vote, or undermine the integrity of elections will be brought to justice,” Paxton said.
In October 2020, The watchdog group Project Veritas exposed and released two videos purporting to show Rodriguez engaged in vote harvesting leading up to the 2020 election. Rodriguez claimed to be working with elected state and county officials in coercing voters, harvesting ballots, voting on behalf of people, and running a cash-for-votes operation.
The Election Fraud Division of the Office of the Attorney General reviewed dozens of hours of unedited, raw footage, which led to her arrest. Rodriguez acknowledged on video that what she was doing is illegal and that she could go to jail for it.
“The shocking and blatantly illegal action documented by Project Veritas demonstrates a form of election fraud my office continually investigates and prosecutes,” Paxton said.
If found guilty, Rodriguez could face up to 20 years in prison.
Public Interest Legal Foundation President J. Christian Adams praised Rodriguez’s arrest, saying in a statement that “Texas is leading the nation in effective investigations into ballot harvesting.”
“Texas shows how election officials, law enforcement, and the concerned public can collaborate to identify alleged election fraud schemes,” Adams said.
According to Paxton the investigation is ongoing and individuals involved in or with knowledge of this organized vote harvesting scheme are encouraged to come forward and cooperate with the Office of the Attorney General.
Since 2004, 150 people have been charged with voter fraud in Texas.
In October 2020, candidate for mayor of Carrollton, Zul Mirza Mohamed was arrested for an alleged mail-in voter fraud operation. Mohamed was charged with 25 counts of unlawful possession of an official mail ballot and 84 counts of providing false information on a voting application and was allegedly using a fraudulently obtained PO Box.
Breitbart reported that federal election data reveals about 28.4 million mail-in ballots have gone missing in each of the last four elections from 2012 to 2018.
According to Pew Research Center analysis, there are potentially 24 million ineligible or inaccurate voter registrations on state voter rolls.
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Catherine Smith reports for American Greatness.
Photo “Rachel Rodriguez” by Texas Attorney General.
